



u 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf.. J$_3 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




The Phonograph, 




The Phonograph in operation, p. 103. 



ENTERTAINING 



ANECDOTES 



FROM EVERY AVAILABLE SOURCE. 



" That reminds me of a story. " 



fr 



EDITED BY 

/ 

J. B. McCLURE, 

II 

COMPILER OF "MOODY'S ANECDOTES," "MOODY'S CHILD STORIES," Etc 



CHICAGO: 

PUBLISHED BY RHODES & McCLURE; 

1879. 



I b AsO i 



,M 3 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by 

J. B. McCLURE &> R. S. RHODES. 

In the Office of the Librarian 0/ Congress at 

Washington, D. C. 



CHICAGO t 

A. M. Wood, Printer, 167 S. Clark Street. 



Chicago Legal News Co., Stcreotypers. 



A good story always entertains and enlightens, and when 
personal, reveals in a striking manner the essential elements in 
character. To say that Geo. Washington was truthful is well; 
but to narrate the story of "the hatchet" seals the fact with the 
signet of immortality. The appropriate anecdote pleasingly 
imparts zest and interest to all conversation, and adds invari- 
ably to conversational ease and power. In this volume the 
compiler has aimed to present a great and wholesome variety 
of fresh, interesting and instructive anecdotes, adapted for the 
general reader, and also applicable for illustrations. They have 
been written and selected with much care, and will be found in 
every instance, pleasing and entertaining. Classifications have 
been made for the reader's convenience, and "Falling Leaves" 
are added at the close of the volume to give variety. Ac- 
knowledging his indebtedness to the press and friends, the 
compiler respectfully dedicates the volume to the public. 

J. B. McCLURE, 

Chicago, 111. 




A 

Abducted by an Orang-Ou- 

tang, - - - - 134 
A Bottle of Whiskey that 
went Through the Mexi- 
can War, 77 
A Brick Story, - - 15 
A California Mining Story, - 228 
A Canary Which Sings "A 

Life on the Ocean Wave, ' ' 146 
A Cat's Gratitude, - - 173 
A Child-Queen, - - - 180 
A Close Fight with a Pan- 
ther, - - 132 
A Cold Water Horse, - - 154 
A Cunning Sparrow, - 162 
A Deer that Went Over Nia- 
gara Falls, - - - 146 
A Disgusted Widow, - 25 
A Diver's Adventure with a 

Devil Fish, - - - 133 
A Dog's Appreciation of 

Money, - - - 155 
A Dog that Knew his own 

Property, - - - 151 

A Duck Battle, - - 130 

A Fortunate Presentiment, - 215 

A Generous Sparrow, - 170 
A Horse found Swimming in 

the Ocean, - - - 122 

A Horse with a Snake-eye, 170 



A Hunter's "Bear Story," - 148 
A Light in the Window, - 199 
A Mouse Charmed by a Ser- 
pent, - - - - 159 
A Musical Mountain in Ne- 
vada, - - - 225 
An Affectionate Goose, - 143 
An Alaska Romance - - 185 
An Arab's Love for His Horse, 147 
Anchoring a Horse, 61 
Anecdote of Chief Justice 

Chase's Parents 70 

Anecdote of Gen. Jackson, 20 
Anecdote of Geo. Washington 

and Thos. Jefferson, - 66 

Anecdote of Horace Greeley, 113 

Anecdote of Prof. Henry, - 36 
An Erring Mother's Love for 

Her Child, - - - 198 
An Incident in Prof. Swing's 

Early Life, - - - 109 
An Incident in Dr. Hodge's 

Recitation Room, - 119 
An Ingenious Mother, - 202 
An Owl Imprisoned by Mar- 
tins, 122 
An Exciting Railroad Story, 37 
Ant- Wars in South Africa, 145 
A Nurse who Sacrificed Her 
Own Life to Save Five 
Children, - - - 186 
A Parrot Tricks a Cat, - 158 



A Physician Pops the Ques- 
tion by a Queer Prescrip- 
tion - - - - 181 
A Professor's Love - - 182 
A Remarkable Horse - - 155 
A Remarkable Incident in 
Connection with Bishop 
Lee's Death, - - 238 
A Remarkable Story, - - 164 
A Remarkable Story of a 

Hunter, - - - 135 
Artists' Superstitions, - - 237 
A Scared Conductor - - 61 

A Self-Denying Cat, - - 151 
A Snake Battle, - - 136 
A Strange Story, - - - 216 
A Thrilling Adventure with a 
Bear and Indians in the 
Black Hills, - - - 123 
A Tiger Frightened by a 

Mouse, - - - 168 

A very Polite Horse. - 152 

A Widower and a Widow, 183 



Bird Charity; A Little Wren 
Adopts Four Orphan Rob- 
ins, - 154 
Bird Love, - - - 200 
Bishop Button's Gratitude, 95 
Boyish Trick, - 78 



Canine Sagacity, - - - 150 
Catfish Stories, as Told by 

Sambo et al., - - 45 

Choosing a Wife by Proxy, - 195 

Col. Horry, - 88 

Colorado Distances, - - 52 

Curiosities of Etiquette, - 224 



Daniel Webster and his Ten- 
ant, 39 
Daniel Webster and the 

Farmer, 46 

Daniel Webster's Fish Story, 17 
Death Struggle Between a 

Sea Lion and Sturgeon, - 125 
"Deko," - - - 153 
Dickens' Illustrations, - 101 
Didn't Find Richmond, - 56 
Dog Drowning a Cat, - - 163 
" Dot Mexico Through," - 4& 
Dr. Breckenridge on the Ad- 
vent Question, - - 117 
Dr. Franklin Turning the 

Grindstone. _ - - 92 
Dr. Rice on Matrimony, - 117 
Duke of Wellington's Cool- 
ness, - 68 
Dying Words, - - - 227 



Elder Seely's Experience in 

a Colored Church, - 116 
Excuse for Second Marriage, 38 



Facetious Letter from Horace 

Greeley, --- 75 

Falling Leaves, - - - 239 
Fanny Fern's Story of Gail 

Hamilton 's Three Kittens, 93 

Fishes Fighting a Whale, - 171 

Florence Nightingale, - - 94 



Gen. Lee and the Newspapers, 77 
Gen. Stark and " His Molly," 79 



Giving Her Census, 32 
Governor Seymour and the 

Baptist Deacon - - 118 

Governor Stewart's Gratitude, 76 
Grace Greenwood's Story of 

Queen Victoria's Discipline, 94 

H 

Haydn and His " Creation " 

—Thrilling Scene - - 100 
Henry M. Stanley's Romance, 196 
He Wanted a Better Dog, 47 

His Melons, 51 

How a Dog Adapted Him- 
self to Circumstances, 125 
How a Dog Won a Wager 

Under Difficulties, - 156 
How a Half Guinea made Dr. 

Clarke's Commentaries, 96 
How a Madman Recovered, - 221 
How an Emperor Found his 

Wife, ... 184 

How a Widowed Clergyman 

Married, - - - 194 
How Barnum Became a Tee- 
totaller, ... 75 
How Dan Hung his Scythe, - 85 
How Great Men Escaped, 218 
How One Apache Indian 

Stampeded 400 Cattle, - 138 
Huw Phil. Sheridan Diso- 
beyed Orders, - - 105 
How She Felt at the Bottom 

of the River, - - 228 

.Clow Lincoln Dispatched 

Business, - 120 

How Spurgeon got a Hat, 83 
How the Elephant got out of 

Difficulties, - - - 160 
How the Swallows come Home, 130 



How Two Goats got out of a 

Dilemma, ... 159 

How Young Ulysses Loaded 

the Wagon, 87 

I 

Incident in Mrs. Partington's 

Early Life, - - - 102 

Incident of the Revolution, 84 

Injustice Illustrated, - 72 

Insurance on the Tiber, - 18 



Jenny Lind's "Best Compli- 
ment," 110 

Jenny Lind's Hat- full of Pearls, 91 

Judgment Invited on the Evi- 
dence, -. - 37 

Juvenile Generosity, 19 



Love Stronger than Law and 

Death, - 193 

Luther on Pilate's Stair Case, 99 

M 

Malapropos, - - 34 

Marc Antony's Oration over 

Csesar, ... 59 

Mark Twain's Amusing Se- 
quels to several Anec- 
dotes, 40 
Mark Twain's Great Frog 

Story, - - - 139 

Mark Twain's Watch, - - 29 
Mary Anderson's Dream, - 222 
Miss Fleshman's Terrific 

Fight with a Rattlesnake, 123 
Miss Thurston's Pleading 

Pigeon, 101 



Moody and Reynolds, - - 86 

Moody Getting out of a Tight 

Place,- 79 

Moody's Remarkable Anec- 
dote of a Defaulter, - 108 

Mrs. Lieut. Helms' Story of 
the Fort Dearborn (Chi- 
cago) Massacre, 80 

N 

Napoleon and Dugazon, - 89 
Narrow Escape of Gen. 

Washington, - - 85 

No use Fighting against Fate, 52 



Ole Bull, Camille Urso and 

MissTopp, - 97 



Parrot Story, 166 
Poverty, Beauty, Riches and 

Royalty, - - - 194 

President White - - 118 

Prof. Alexander, - - - 107 
Prof. Henry and President 

Lincoln, 69 

Q 

Queen Victoria's Love for 
Prince Albert; Their Mar- 
riage, - - - - 188 

R 

Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher, - 67 
Rev. John Brown, of Had- 
dington, - 98 
Riches from the Skies, - - 235 
Robin Stories, - - - 167 
Rosa Bonheur and the Journ- 
alist, - 90 



Sagacity of a Horse that Es- 
caped from the Custar 

Massacre, 121 

Saved by Feigning Death, 128 

Selecting a Wife in the Cars, 211 

She Meant Business, 57 

Singular Phenomenon, - 217 

Solving the Problem, 65 

Suicide of a Dog, - - 173 
Surrender of Vincennes to 

Col. Clark, - - 111 

Swallow Love, - 144 



Taking Advantage of Misfor- 
tune, - -.■ - - 221 
Tantalizing Swallows, - 171 
Terrible Encounter with Two 

Vipers in a Dark Room, 137 
The Bankruptcy Question, - 54 
The Better Dog of the Two, 148 
The Clown's Acting Misun- 
derstood, ... 234 
The Dying Monkey, - 126 
The Editor's Snake Story, - 26 
The Fire Escape Man's Dog 

"Bill," ... 157 
The First Iron Sword, - 236 
The Great Economist, Thom- 
as Guy, 70 
The Horrors of Boston Water, 55 
1 ' The Heart Never Forgets, " 179 
The Largest Snake in Amer- 
ica, 131 
The News Boy, The Scientist; 
Anecdotes of Thomas A. 
Edison, - - - 103 
The Old War Elephant, - 20 
The Pet Serpent, - - 127 
The Phantom Whistle, - 220 



The Phonograph in Georgia, 47 
The Priest and the Lawyers, 24 
The Sectarian Dog, - - 161 
The Swamp Angel, - - 226 
The Toddygraph, - - 23 
The Trained Horse " Porter," 164 
The True Story of Mary's Lit- 
tle Lamb, - 71 
The Value of a Half Guinea, 96 
" To Have and to Hold, 1 ' - 187 
Too Much for Gen. Washing- 
ton, - - - - 106 
Trained Dog, - - 172 
Treasure Trove, - - - 223 
Two Remarkable Answers to 

Prayers, - - - 115 
Two Snakes Killing a Rac- 
coon, - 144 



Two Yards Jaconet, or a Hus- 
band; James Gordon 
Bennett's Love Story, - 203 



u 

Uncle Sile's Gospel Horn, 

w 



48 



72 



Webster and Calhoun, 
Wesley and Nelson in Corn- 
wall, - 95 
What Dying People See, 229 
Whimsicalities of Insanity, 219 
Whitfield and the Little Boy, 99 
William III., 69 
Wonderful Instinct of a Dog, 

Horse and Cat, - - 169 

Wonderful Sagacity, - 158 



CLASSIFICATION. 



PAGE. 



Amusing Stories, --------- 15 

Personal Stories, --65 

Animal Stories, - - - 121 

Love Stories, 179 

Marvelous Stories, 215 

Falling Leaves, --------- 239 




The Phonograph, 

The Phonograph in operation, 

Aquarium, 

Home of the Trout, 

The Hunter, 

Thomas Alva Edison, 

Fort Dearborn, Chicago, 

D. L. Moody, 

Col. George Rogers Clark, 

Sir Edwin Landseer, 

On Guard, - 

The Trained Dog, 

The Lassie, - 

The Mandarin, or Bridal Duck, 

Falling Leaves, 



4 

4 

'4 

19 

47 

65 
81 

87 

^3 
121 

153 

173 
179 
201 
239 



Entertaining Anecdotes. 



AMUSING. 



A Brick Story. 

A well-known citizen living not many blocks from Union 
Square in New York city, relates an incident in this wise : 

One bright morning in the month of November, some years 
ago, I was preparing to go down-town, when the- servant inform- 
ed me that a man was waiting to see me. "Tell him I'll be down 
in a moment, " said I. On going to the door a man of tall stat- 
ure and robust appearance, calling me by name, requested assist- 
ance, saying that he had a large family, a wife in delicate health, 
and no means to procure food for them. "You appear to be 
strong and healthy; why don't you work?" asked I. "Simply, 
sir, for the reason that I cannot procure work. " 

Not having any work to give him, I thought I would test the 
sincerity of his intentions. "If I would give you work, what pay 
do you want?" "Anything, sir, you choose to give me, so long 
as I can obtain means for my suffering family." "Very well," 
said I, "I will give you twenty-five cents an hour if you will carry 
a brick on your arm around the block for five hours without stop- 
ping. " "Thank you, sir; I will do it." After hunting awhile I 
found a brick, placed it on the man's arm, started him on his 
walk, and then went down-town to my business. 

Not having the least faith in the man's promise, I thought but 
little more of it, yet as I knew I should be back within five hours 



i6 ENTERTAINING Amusing. 



I determined to see if he performed his work. My business kept 
me away rather later than I expected, so I had to forego my usual 
walk home, and took a Fourth avenue car to be back within the 
five hours. 

As I approached the corner of the street where I reside I 
found a great crowd of persons gathered — two fire-engines, a 
hose-cart, and a hook-and-ladder-truck. Upon inquiring where 
the fire was, I was informed that it was a false alarm, and that 
what brought the people together and occasioned the agitation 
was the spectacle of a tall man carrying a brick on his arm around 
the block for nearly five hours. The neighbors were looking at 
him from the windows and doors as he passed along ; some thought 
he was crazy, but when spoken to his answer was : " Don't stop 
me : it's all right. " As he interfered with no one, he was allowed 
to walk on undisturbed. "Where is the man now?" I asked. 
" There, you can see him at the other end of the block, walking 
with his head down," was the answer. 

He was just about turning the corner, and I waited till he had 
performed the circuit, then taking him quietly by the arm, I 
marched him to my house, followed by a lot of boys. In the 
meantime, the firemen, engines, and hose-cart rattled "off. The 
man was thoroughly tired out when I took him into my hall and 
seated him on a chair, while my servant went for a little wine 
and something to eat. I paid him forthwith a dollar and a half. 
He informed me that, while making one of his turns, a lady 
came out of a house and inquired why he was carrying that 
brick, and on his giving her the reasons he received a dollar. 
The object soon became known, for as he passed the houses, 
small sums were given to him by different persons, and he was 
well satisfied with his day's work. "But, " said he, "what shall I 
do to-morrow?" "Why," I replied, "go early in the morning to 
the houses from which you received the money, and ask for 
work, and no doubt you will find some one who will put you in 
the way of getting it, then report to me. " The following after- 
noon he informed that he had been sent to a German, who kept 
a pork establishment in Third avenue, and who wanted a clerk 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. 17 

to keep his books. He was to get $5 a week if his work proved 
satisfactory, and his duties began on the following day. Before 
leaving me. he asked me for the brick which had brought him such 
good luck, and I gave it to him. Within the year I ascertained 
that the man had been transferred to a larger establishment of 
the same kind, with a salary of $1000. 

Three or four years after this I was riding in a street-car, when 
a well-dressed man accosted me with a smile, and asked me if I 
knew him. Seeing me hesitate, he said: "Don't you recollect 
the man who carried the brick?" 

He then informed me that he was doing a prosperous business 
on his own account, had laid up money, and expected soon to 
build himself a house up-town. 

"What became of the brick?" I inquired. 

"That brick, sir, has always occupied a place on our mantle- 
piece, and we value it as the most precious of our little possessions. 
It has made our fortune." 



Daniel Webster's Fish Story. 

Webster liked to commune with plain people, living in out-of- 
the-way places, whom he encountered. On one of his fishing 
excursions he went to make trial of a certain brook, and drove 
to the house of a Mr. Baker, whom he knew by name, and asked 
permission of the old man to fasten his horse for an hour or two. 
This was readily granted, and as he was preparing his rod and 
line, the following conversation occurred: Webster — "I have 
heard that there was very good fishing in this brook, Mr. Baker. " 
Baker — "Well a good many folks have been here, and taken a 
good many trout out sometimes." Webster — "We must try and 
see what we can do this morning. Where do they usually begin 
to fish?" Baker — "O I'll show you. " The old man accompa- 
nied Mr. Webster to the brook, and pointed out the spot. It 
was where the brook was thickly overhung with alders, and 
the ground was very miry. Mr. Webster sank into the mud 
half-way up his leg. Webster— "Rather miry here, Mr. Baker." 



ENTERTAINING Amusing 



Baker — "Yes, I know it, and that's the worst on't. " After throw- 
ing several times and catching his hook in the alders : Webster — 

"These alders are rather in the way, Mr. Baker." Baker "Yes, 

I know it. That's the worst on't." The mosquitoes now began 
to bite most annoyingly. One hand was busy all the time slap- 
ping them off the face and the other hand. Webster — "These 
mosquitoes are pretty thick and very hungry, Mr. Baker." Ba- 
ker — "Yes, I know it. That's the worst on't." Now the heat 
in the low ground, without a breath of air, had become intense. 
Mr. W. wiped his forehead and rested a moment. Webster — 
"It is very hot down in these bushes, Mr. Baker." Baker — 
"Yes, I know it. That's the worst on't. Mr. Webster resumed 
his fishing, and after an hour's struggle with the heat, the bushes, 
the mire and the mosquitoes: Webster — "There seems to be no 
fish here, Mr. Baker." Baker — " Yes, I know it. T/ia/s the 
worst on't" There was no resisting this. Mr. Webster put up 
his rod and departed; but he laughed all the way home at the 
"worst on't," and always took pleasure in recalling the occur- 
rence to mind. 



Insurance on the Tiber. 

"Marcus Cselius," Cicero said to his legal friend, meeting him 
one morning on the other side of a screen under the Capitol, 
"I wish you would get out the necessary papers some time to- 
day, and bring suit for me against the Yellow Tiber Fire & Ma- 
rine Insurance Company for the amount of its policies on my 
villa at Tusculum and my town house. 

M. Cselius ldoked up in amazement. 

"Why," he exclaimed, "when did they burn down? And what 
was it? Accident? Mob? Some of Clodius' people?" 

"No," Cicero said, "they are intact as yet, and, in fact, I 
haven't insured them yet, but I am going to do so to-morrow, 
and I want to bring suit against the Company now, so that if they 
ever should happen to burn, I won't have quite so long to wait 
for the money." 




The Home of the Trout. 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. 19 

Caelius saw that the orator's head was level, and brought suit 
that afternoon. Eleven years afterwards the villa at Tusculum 
and the town house were both destroyed by fire. The suit had 
by that Ijimebeen in five different courts, and had been confirmed, 
and reversed, and remanded and refferred to the master to take 
proof, and stricken from the docket, and amended, and rebutted, 
and sur-rebutted, and impleaded, and rejoindered, and filed, and 
quashed, and continued, until nobody knew what it was about, 
and Cicero was notified three weeks after the fire that he would 
have to prove willful and long-continued absence and neglect, as 
he could not get a decree simply on the grounds of incompati- 
bility of temperament. And when he went to the Secretary of 
the Company, that official told him the Company didn't know 
anything about the fire, and had no time to attend to such things. 
The Company's business, the Secretary said, was to insure houses, 
not to run around to fires, asking about the insurance. If he 
wanted any information on those points, he would have to ask 
the firemen or the newspaper reporters. 

The more a man reads in these old histories, the more he is 
convinced that the insurance business in the days of the Prastors 
was a great deal more like it is to-day. " 



Juvenile Generosity. 



I'm glad to say that our child, remarked an indulgent father, is 
a generous little body. The other day her grandfather gave her 
a cent to buy herself some candy. As she was going out, she 
discovered a little beggar boy on the front steps. She stopped, 
and looked first at him and then at her cent; then looked clown 
on the ground, apparently lost in thought. Finally, with the 
sweetest smile on her beautiful face, she stepped up to the for- 
lorn child, and, laying her hand on his shoulder, said, in a gentle 
tone, "Here, little boy, take this cent, and go and buy yourself 
a suit of clothes and some dinner. 



.2o ENTERTAINING Amusing. 

Anecdote of General Jackson. 

The following anecdote is told of General Jackson, at the time 
when, as military commander in Florida, during the administra- 
tion of President Monroe, he had tried, at a drum -head court 
martial, sentenced, and hung two Englishmen, who had incited, it 
was said, an insurrection among the Indians. President Monroe 
feared that Great Britain would make trouble about this, and 
summoned his bold Brigadier to this city, where he was arraigned 
at a meeting of the Cabinet. John Quincy Adams, then Secre- 
tary of State, who had instructed Jackson to govern with a firm 
hand in Florida, defended him, and read a long argument in 
which he quoted international law as expounded by Grotius, 
Vattel, and Puffendorf. Jackson listened in sullen silence, but 
that evening, when asked at a dinner party whether he was not 
comforted by Mr. Adams' citation of authorities, he exclaimed : 
"What do I care about those old musty chaps? Blast Grotius, 
blast Vattel, and blast the Puffen-chap. This is a fight between 
Joe Monroe and me, and I propose to fight it out." Old Hick- 
ory cared little about arguments and authorities, and he believed 
that "To the victors belong the spoils." 



The Old War Elephant. 

In the autumn of 1876 I was living in the interior of Bengal, 
and I went to spend Christmas with my friend Maj. Daly. The 
Major's bungalow was on the banks of the Ganges, near Cawn- 
pore. He had lived there a good many years, being Chief of 
the Quarmaster's Department at that station, and had a great 
many natives, elephants, bullocks carts and soldiers under his 
command. 

On the morning after my arrival, after a cup of early tea (often 
taken before daylight in India), I sat smoking with my friend in 
the veranda of his bungalow, looking out upon the windings of 
the sacred river. And, directly, I asked the Major about his 



Amusing, ANECDOTES. 21 

children (a boy and a girl), whom I had not yet seen, and begged 
to know when I should see them. 

" Soupramany has taken them out fishing," said their father. 

"Why, isn't Soupramany your great war elephant?" I cried. 

" Exactly so. You cannot have forgotten Soupramany! 

" Of course not. I was here you know, when he had that fight 
with the elephant who went mad while loading a transport with 
bags of rice down yonder. I saw the mad elephant when he 
suddenly began to fling the rice into the river. His 'mahout' 
tried to stop him, and he killed the mahout. The native sailors 
ran away to hide themselves, and the mad elephant, trumpeting 
charged into this enclosure. Old Soupramany was here and so 
were Jim and Bessie. When he saw the mad animal he threw 
himself between him and the children. The little ones and their 
nurses had just time to get into the house when the fight com- 
menced." 

"Yes," said the Major, Old Soup was one hundred years old. 
He had been trained to war, and to fight with the rhinoceros, but 
he was too old to hunt then. " 

"And yet," said I, becoming animated by the recollections of 
that day, what a gallant fight it was. Do you remember how we 
all stood on this porch and watched it, not daring to fire a shot 
lest we should hit old Soupramany? Do you remember, too, 
his look when he drew off, after fighting an hour and a half, leav- 
ing his adversary dying in the dust, and walked straight to the 
'corral,' shaking his great ears, which had been badly torn, with 
his head bruised, and a great piece broken from one of his 
tusks?" 

"Yes, indeed," said the Major. "Well, since then he is more 
devoted to my little ones than ever. He takes them out whole 
days, and I am perfectly content to have them under his charge, 
T don't like trusting Christian children to the care of natives ; 
but with old Soup I know they can come to no harm." 

"What! you trust children under 10 years of age to Soup, 
without any other protection?" 



22 ENTERTAINING Amusing. 

"I do," replied the Major. "Come along with me, if you 
doubt, and we will surprise them at their fishing." 

I followed Maj. Daly, and after walking half a mile along the 
wooded banks of the river, we came upon the little group. The 
two children — Jim, the elder, being about 10 — both sat still and 
silent, for a wonder, each holding a rod, with line, cork, hook, 
and bait, anxiously watching the gay corks bobbing in the water. 
Beside them stood Old Soup, with an extremely large bamboo 
rod in his trunk, with line, hook, bait, and cork, like the chil- 
dren's. I need not say I took small notice of the children, but 
turned all my attention to their big companion. I had not 
watched him long before he had a bite, for, as the religion of the 
Hindoos forbids them to take life, the river swarms with fishes. 

The old fellow did not stir; his little eyes watched his line 
eagerly; he was no novice in "the gentle craft." He was wait- 
ing till it was time to draw in his prize. 

At the end of his line as he drew it up, was dangling one of 
those golden tench so abundant in the Ganges. 

When Soupramany perceived what a fine fish he had caught, 
he uttered one of those long, low, gurgling notes of satisfaction 
by which an elephant expresses joy; and he waited patiently, ex- 
pecting Jim to take his prize off the hook and put on some more 
bait for him. But Jim, the little rascal, sometimes liked to 
plague Old Soup. He nodded at us, as much as to say, " Look 
out and you'll see fun now!" Then he took off the fish, which 
he threw into a water-jar placed there for the purpose, and went 
back to his place without putting any bait on Old Soup's hook. 
The intelligent animal did not attempt to throw his line into the 
water. He tried to move Jim by low, pleading cries. It was 
curious to see what tender tones he seemed to try to give his 
voice. 

* Seeing that Jim paid no attention to his calls, but sat and 
laughed as handled his own line, Old Soup went up to him, 
and with his trunk tried to turn his head in the direction of the 
bait-box. At last, when he found that all he could do would 
not induce his willful friend to help him, he turned round as 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. 23 

if struck by a sudden thought, and, snatching up in his trunk 
the box that held the bait, came and laid it down at the Major's 
feet; then picking up his rod, he held it out to his master. 

"What do you want me to do with this, Old Soup?" said the 
Major. 

The creature lifted one great foot after the other, and again 
began to utter his plaintive cry. Out of mischief, I took Jimmy's 
part, and picking up the bait-box, pretended to run with it, The 
elephant was not going to be teased by me. He dipped his 
trunk into the Ganges, and in an instant squirted a stream of 
water over me with all the force and precision of a fire-engine, 
to the immense amusement of the children. 

The Major at once made Soup a sign to stop, and to make 
my peace with the fine old fellow, I baited his hook myself. 
Quivering with joy, as a baby does, when it gets hold at last of 
a plaything some one has taken from it, Old Soupramany hardly 
paused to thank me by a soft note of joy for baiting his line for 
him, before he went back to his place, and was again watching 
his cork as it trembled on the ripples of the River. 



The Toddygraph. 

"Officer Warlow bring up Moses in the bullrushes," said Jus- 
tice Bixby. 

The officer brought up a seed-cucumbery-looking individual, 
and placed him at the railing. 

"The officer found you last night," said the Judge, "lying in 
the bullrushes round the Union Square fountain, dead drunk. 
What have you to say?" 

"Well, Judge, I'll tell you how it was," said the prisoner, "I'm 
an inventer." 

" Of what? " asked his Honor. 

" Of the toddygraph." 

"What's that?" 

"Why, you wind a cylinder with tinfoil," said the prisoner, 



24 ENTERTAINING Amusing. 

"and drop into a liquor-saloon and take a drink. You have the 
cylinder under your coat, and when the barkeeper ain't looking, 
you breathe on the tinfoil ; when you get out you turn a crank 
and repeat the drink as often as you please." 

"A very dangerous invention," said his Honor. 

"By no means," said the prisoner, "for it ruins the landlord's 
business. One drink will last a week." 

"Yes," said his Honor, "but it kills the imbiber." 

" But if there were no landlords there would be no imbibers," 
said the prisoner. 

"That may be so: but what has all this to do with your being 
found drunk in a public park?" 

"I'll tell you. Last night I was testing a new machine, and 
I think — I won't be positive — but I think I turned the crank 
just once too often." 

"Very well," said his Honor, "I will send you up for ten 
days. As you tarry in classic Blackwell, I advise you to turn 
your inventive genius to something more useful. Invent a din- 
nergraph, for instance, so that a poor man can repeat a square 
meal often. Millions yet unborn will bless you, and your name 
will go down to posterity along with Peter Cooper and Florence 
Nightingale." 

The Priest and the Lawyers. 

The boys up on the Northwestern Railroad were telling us 
about an old Catholic priest who lived until quite recently out 
at Boone, and was, in his way, decidedly and characteristically 
original. It seems that on a certain occasion, some or many 
years ago, we don't remember which, he became a party, or a 
witness, in some law suits, and, as is the legal custom, was 
soundly berated and abused by the learned counsel on the other 
side, for having the temerity to have anything whatever to do 
with a case at law, of any kind. The result was that a very bit- 
ter feeling grew up between the old prelate and the two young 
lawyers, and time did not appear to soften this feeling at all. 
But one day the old man fell very ill. He was very old, and his 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. 25 

sickness sat so ^eavily upon him that he feared he would never 
arise from the bed upon which he had lain down. So when he 
thought his last hour was approaching, he sent for these two law- 
yers, and they obeyed the summons and came into his presence. 
With great difficulty he accosted them and begged them to stand 
one on either side of his bed, and remain there until he passed 
away. Deeply affected, the two lawyers did as he desired, and 
when they were standing on each side of him, with solemn faces, 
one of them, in low, earnest tones, told the old man how glad 
they were that in his dying, hour he should forgive them, and feel 
no bitterness towards them, for any innocent or even excessive 
display of professional zeal. 

The old priest slowly opened his eyes. "It is not that," he 
said, and the two young men bent forward eagerly to listen. 

"It isn't that," gasped the old priest. "It isn't that. But I 
feel that I am a dying man. And I want to die like my dear 
Master." 

The words came slowly and very painfully, and the young 
barristers held their breath while they leaned forward to catch 
the next sentence. The old man turned his eyes upon them : 

"Between — two — thieves." 

Two crestfallen young men tiptoed silently towards the door. 
Two blank looking faces stared at each other out on the side- 
walk, and two rising young barristers didn't know whether to 
laugh or get angry. But the old priest didn't die. There was 
enough good humor in his old heart to conquer a dozen diseases, 
and send even death away smiling, and we believe the old man 
is still alive and living in Fort Madison. 



A Disgusted Widow. 

Capt. W has just returned from the Warm Springs. The 

Captain is a widower. At the Springs was a widow who rather 
set her cap for the Captain. The girls told him to look out, and 
the Captain replied, well, he was ready. 

Sitting out in the portico one evening, the cool breeze fanning 



26 ENTERTAINING Amusing. 

like a ten-cent palm-leaf, and thinking of his daughters far away 
at school, the widow moved up close by and opened conver- 
sation. 

"I hear, Captain, you have grown-up daughters." 

"Yes, madam, I have." 

"How I should like to see their pictures." 

"I will show you a picture of my eldest daughter," said the 
Captain, handing her one. 

"Oh, such a sweet face," said the widow; "and such a fine 
eye! Isn't she called like you, Captain?" 

"I don't know, madam, that she is." 

"It is a wonder to me, Capt. W , you do not get married. " 

"Well, ma'am, I never think of it; for the woman I'd have 
might not have me, and then, you know, vice-versa. " 

"Yes, but what kind of a lady would suit you?" and the widow 
looked her sweetest. 

It was right here the Captain's wonderful nerve never forsook 
him; but, setting his eye steadily at the widow's, he hardened 
his heart, and replied: "Madam, she must be 95 years old to a 
second, and worth $200,000. " 

"It is getting so chilly out here I must go for my shawl," said 
the widow; and she looked frigid zones at the Captain as she 
brushed him by with a toss of her head. 



The Editor's Snake Story. 

The Ohio Editors visited the Zoological Garden one day in 
Philadelphia. The brown bear?, the moment they saw them, 
plunged into the water and never came out till the editors left. 
The chimpanzees appeared pleased, and frisked about and ex- 
tended their hands numerous times in token of hearty welcome. 
The editors didn't like their familiarity, and withdrew to the 
snakes. There was one man in the party who eyed the boa- 
constrictor and other large reptiles that are wont to arouse the 
wonder of spectators with such indifference that he attracted the 
attention of all who saw him. But among the other editors a 



J musing. ANECDOTES. 27 

whisper went round that he was the man who had the recent ex- 
perience with a large snake in Ohio. Some had not heard of 
the affair, and after they got out in the shade and seated them- 
selves on benches near the sea-lions, by dint of a good deal of 
urging he was prevailed on to relate the story, as follows: 

"About a month ago, feeling the need of relaxation, and know- 
ing I had an able substitute in my partner and business man- 
ager, I took a brief vacation from my editorial duties, and went 
down to visit my brother on his farm on the Sciota. The farm- 
house stands on a sloping piece of ground; below them flows the 
Sciota River, clear and cool, and above them the ground ascends 
to a gentle knoll. It is very rocky in that region, and rattle- 
snakes, blacksnakes of the racer species, and copperheads are 
said to be thicker here than in any other part of Ohio. I had 
never seen any myself, and so went there thinking little or noth- 
ing about them. My brother's wife is a great woman for rais- 
ing chickens. At the Ohio State Fair, last year, her chickens 
took the first and second prize for choice of breed and for large 

size. When I got down to the farm I found Mrs. in great 

distress. All her large chickens had disappeared but two or 
three, and nobody could tell what became of them. Varmints 
were not plenty about there, so the blame could not lay on foxes. 
Neither could it be put on persons, for all the folks about there 
were honest farmers and belonged to the church. One day I 
was up on the hill-side, seated in the shade, as we are now, 
reading. Presently, I happened to look up, and saw, not twenty 

yards from me, one of Mrs. 's large shanghai roosters. It 

was almost as large as a turkey, and I remember, as I watched 
him strutting around, I wondered whether it wasn't his great size 
that had kept him from going with the rest. I resumed my read- 
ing again, but in less than a minute I heard a flutter of wings 
and looked up. The rooster was nowhere to be seen. The 
ground was clear for an area of half a mile. I got up, and no- 
ticed a short distance away, near where I had last seen the 
rooster, what I took to be feathers in the hollow of a black 
stump. I went to the spot. They were feathers. The stump, 



28 ENTERTAINING Amusing. 

as I came closer, seemed to recede a short way into the group, 
and the feathers with it. 

Here the editor paused; and swept the perspiration from his 
brow with a red handkerchief, while the crowd, with horror de- 
picted on their faces as plainly as these words are printed on 
paper, drew their seats up closer and pushed their heads nearer. 

"Gentlemen," said the editor, carefully placing his handker- 
chief in his tyreast-pocket, "if I live to be 900 years old I shall 
never forget the cold sensation that seemed to creep through 
my blood, when I saw that stump had two glittering eyes and a 
white ring around its neck. It was a racer, and I saw the tail of 
the rooster sticking out of its yawning mouth. I got down to 
the house and my legs seemed like limber pipe stems as I went. 
Half an hour later my brother, myself and three or four of the 
neighbors returned to the scene with ropes and a log-chain. We 
knew it would only be a waste of powder and lead to try to 
shoot the snake, so we got above him and rolled stones down 
the hill till he drew his head into the ground. Then we quickly 
laid the log-chain around the hole in a sort of draw-loop. To 
the other end of the chain we attached the rope. Then we got 
down the hill with the end of the rope and waited. We did not 
have long to wait. In less than thirty minutes he came out. 
We waited till his neck protruded for about half a foot, and then 
we jerked the rope. The next moment we had him fast. Three 
of us pulled the rope, while the other two got handspikes. Yard 
after yard we drew out, till we had him tail and all. His body 
seemed a foot in diameter and his length — " Here the crowd 
with one accord thrust their heads so close that the narrator was 
obliged l •- move back a little for more room. " — his length was 
thirteen feet and six or eight — let me see; I made a note of it;'' 
and he fumbled for his note-book, but the crowd said never 
mind; they'd take his word for it. "I've left it in my other 
coat-pocket," he said. "But never mind. It was either thir- 
teen feet six or thirteen feet eight inches; my impression is that 
it was thirteen feet eight, but I want to be correct, and we'll give 
veracity the benefit of the doubt and say thirteen six. W T e killed 



Amusing, ANECDOTES. 29 

him with handspikes, and afterward cut him open. In his body 
we found the rooster he had last swallowed, and every one of 
the other chickens that had so mysteriously disappeared. There 
were nine, all told, and every one living. " 

"Living!" ejaculated the crowd in chorus. 

"Living," said the editor calmly. "Before I returned from 
my vacation I had the satisfaction of seeing three as fine broods 
of chickens as I ever expect to see anywhere hatched by three 
of these same hens that had been so long imprisoned in that 
snake's body. 

The party said no more, but sat in deep silence for about one 
minute, when somebody suggested that they be going, and they 
arose and repaired thoughtfully to the place where they keep 
the polar bears. 



Mark Twain's Watch. 

My beautiful new watch had run eighteen months "without 
losing or gaining, and without breaking any part of its machinery, 
or stopping. I had come to believe it infallible in its judgments 
about the time of day, and to consider its constitution and 
its anatomy imperishable. But at last, one night, I let it run 
down. I grieved about it as if it were a recognized messenger 
and forerunner of calamity. But by-and-by I cheered up, set 
the watch by guess, and commanded my bodings and supersti- 
tions to depart. Next day I stepped into the chief jeweler's to 
set it by the exact time, and the head of the establishment took 
it out of my hand and proceeded to set it for me. Then he said, 
"She is four minutes slow — regulator wants pushing up." I tried 
to stop him — tried to make him understand that the watch kept 
perfect time. But no; all this human cabbage could see was 
that the watch was four minutes slow, and the regulator must be 
pushed up a little; and so, while I danced around him in an- 
guish, and implored him to let the watch alone, he calmly and 
cruelly did the shameful deed. My watch began to gain. It 
gained faster and faster day by day. Within the week it sickened 



3o ENTERTAINING Amusin 



to a rag : .ng fever, and its pulse went up to a hundred and fifty 
in the shade. At the end of two months it had left all the time- 
pieces of the town far in the rear, and was a fraction over thirteen 
days ahead of the almanac. It was away into November en- 
joying the snow, while the October leaves were still turning. It 
hurried up house rent, bills payable, and such things, in such a 
ruinous way that I could not abide it. I took it to the watch- 
maker to be regulated. He asked me if I had ever had it re- 
paired. I said no, it had never needed any repairing. He 
looked a look of vicious happiness and eagerly pried the watch 
open, and then put a small dice box into his eye and peered 
into its machinery. He said it wanted cleaning and oiling, be- 
sides regulating — come in a week. After being cleaned, and 
oiled, and regulated, my watch slowed down to that degree that 
it ticked like a toling bell. I began to be left by trains; I failed 
all appointments; I got to missing my dinner; my watch strung 
out three days' grace to four and let me go to protest; I grad- 
ually drifted back into yesterday, then day before, then into last 
week, and by and-by the comprehension came upon me that all 
solitary and alone I was lingering along in week before last, and 
the world was out of sight. I seemed to detect in myself a sort 
of sneaking fellow feeling for the mummy in the museum, and a 
desire to swap news with him. I went to a watchmaker again. — 
He took the watch all to pieces while I waited, and then said 
the barrel was "swelled." He said he could reduce it in three 
days. After this the watch averaged well, but nothing more. 
For half a day it would go like the very mischief, and keep up 
such a barking and wheezing and whooping and sneezing and 
snorting, that I could not hear myself think for the disturbance; 
and as long as it held out there was not a watch in the land that 
stood any chance against it. But the rest of the day it would 
keep on slowing down and fooling along until all the clocks it had 
left behind caught up again. So at last, at the end of twenty- 
four hours, it would trot up to the judges' stand all right and just 
in time. It would show a fair and square average, and no man 
could say it had done more or less than its duty. But a correct 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. y: 

average is only a mild virtue in a watch and I took this instru- 
ment to another watchmaker. He said the kingbolt was broken. 
I said I was glad it was nothing more serious. To tell the plain 
truth, I had no idea what the kingbolt was, but I did not choose 
to appear ignorant to a stranger. He repaired the kingbolt, but 
what the watch gained in one way it lost in another. It would 
run awhile and then stop awhile, and then run awhile again, and 
so on, using its own discretion about the intervals. And every 
time it went off it kicked back like a musket. I padded my breast 
for a few days, but finally took the watch to another watchmaker. 
He picked it all to pieces, and turned the ruin over and over 
under his glass; and then he said there seemed to be something 
the matter with the hair-trigger. He fixed it and then gave it a 
fresh start. It did well now, except that always at ten minutes to 
ten the hands would shut together like a pair of scissors, and 
from that time forth they would travel together. The oldest man 
in the world could not make out the time of day by such a 
watch, and so I went again to have the thing repaired. This 
person said that the crystal had got bent, and that the main- 
spring was not straight. He also remarked that part of the works 
needed half-soling. He made these things all right, and then 
my timepiece performed unexceptionably, save that now and 
then she would reel off the next twenty-four hours in six or seven 
minutes, and then stop with a bang. I went with a heavy heart 
to one more watchmaker, and looked on while he took her to 
pieces. Then I prepared to cross-question him rigidly, for this 
thing was getting serious. The watch had cost two hundred 
dollars originally, and I seemed to have paid out two or three 
thousand for repairs. While I waited and looked on I presently 
recognized in this watchmaker an old acquaintance — a steamboat 
engineer of other days, and not a good engineer either. He ex- 
amined all the parts carefully, just as the other watchmakers had 
done, and then delivered his verdict with the same confidence of 
manner. 

He said — 

"She makes too much steam — you want to hang the monkey- 



32 ENTERTAINING Amusing. 

wrench on the safety-valve!" 

I floored him on the spot. 

My uncle William (now deceased, alas !) used to say that a. 
good horse was a good horse until he had run away once, and 
that a good watch was a good watch until the repairers got a 
chance at it. 



Giving Her Census. 

When the census-taker rapped at the door of a certain cottage 
on Crawford street the other day, and wondered if the woman 
would set the dog on him or douse him with dish water, a great 
disappointment awaited him. She opened the door softly, snuffed 
the air to see if he smelled of lightning-rods, and then threw it 
open for him to enter. 

"Madam, I am making a canvass of the city," he began. 

"Ah! sit down," she replied, and as he began opening his book 
she continued: 

"There are five of us in the family, and we paid one hundred 
down on this place. My husband's name is Peter, his age is forty- 
two, and he came from a mean family. His father was always 
having law-suits about dogs, and his mother was the greatest gos- 
sip in Elmira. Have you got that down ? " 

He nodded assent, and she continued : 

"My name is Alvinah Sarah, and I was born in .". 

"I do not care to know where you was born, madam," he in- 
terrupted. 

"Well, I care !" she exclaimed; "it makes a great deal of differ- 
ence whether I was born in Africa or Boston, and I want it put 
down. As I was saying, I was born in Boston in 1838. Put 
down that I came of a good family. " 

"Madam, you don't understand; you " 

" Don't I understand that I came of a good family? Fd like 
to know of a Boston family which carried their noses higher than 
the Rogerses ! Put down that my father was in the Mexican 
war." 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. 33 

"You have three children, madam!" 

"I haven't any such thing, sir! Put down that my mother 
was killed by an explosion in a quarry. Her father were " 

"How many children have you, madam?" 

"Have you got mother down?" 

"No, madam. You see I am taking the census of the city." 

"Well," she said, giving him a dangerous look, "I had the 
typhoid fever, at the age of 15, and for weeks and weeks I hung 
on the age of the grave. I bore up as well as I was able, 
and " 

"Five in the family — how many children?" he suddenly asked. 

"Put down that I bore up," she commanded. "And that one 
night when the watchers were asleep I crept out of bed and took 
a drink of " 

"This is foreign to the subject, madam. How old are your 
children?" 

"Haven't you put down that I hung on the edge of the 
grave?" 

"No, Madam." 

"Aren't you going to?" 

"No, madam. You see, I am simply taking the census of 
Detroit. I desire to ascertain " 

"You can't ascertain it here, sir!" she snapped. "If my sick- 
ness, which cost over $200, isn't good enough to go in the book, 
then you don't get a line here!" 

Let me ask you " 

"No use asking for any of our photographs, sir! If you get 
'em anywhere and put our pictures in that book, we'll make it 
hot for you! Good day, sir, — good day!" 

He stood on the step, sighing, and she called through the 
door: 

"My grandfather was also bitten to death by an alligator, but 
I won't give you any of the particulars! You want to walk!" 

He passed on, sorrowfully wondering if the next woman's 
mother was blown off a bridge or carried down the river on a 
hay-stack. 

3 



34 ENTERTAINING Amusing, 

Malapropos. 

Charles Dickens once wrote to a friend: "I have distinguished 
myself in two respects lately. I took a young lady unknown down 
to dinner, and talked to her about the Bishop of Durham's 
nepotism in the matter of Mr, Cheese. I found she was Mrs. 
Cheese. And expatiated to the member for Marylebone, Lord 
Fermoy — generally conceiving him to be an Irish member — on 
the contemptible character of the Marylebone constituency and 
Marylebone representatives. " Two such mishaps in one even- 
ing were enough to reduce the most brilliant talker to the con- 
dition of the three "insides" of the London-bound coach, who 
beguiled the tedium of the journey from Southampton by dis- 
cussing the demerits of William Cobbett, until one of the party 
went so far as to assert that the object of their denunciations 
was a domestic tyrant, given to beating his wife; when, much to 
his dismay, the solitary lady passenger, who had hitherto sat a 
silent listener, remarked: "Pardon me, sir; a kinder husband 
and father never breathed; and I ought to know, for I am Wil- 
liam Cobbett's wife ! " 

Mr. Giles, of Virginia, and Judge Duval, of Maryland, mem- 
bers of Congress during Washington's Administration, boarded 
at the house of a Mrs. Gibbon, whose daughters were well on 
in years, and remarkable for talkativeness. When Jefferson be- 
came President, Duval was Comptroller of the Treasury, and 
Giles a Senator. Meeting one day in Washington, they fell to 
chatting over old times, and the Senator asked the Comptroller 
if he knew what had become of "that cackling old maid, Jenny- 
Gibbon." "She is Mrs. Duval, sir, was the unexpected reply. — 
Giles did not attempt to mend matters, as a certain Mr. Tuber- 
ville unwisely did. This unhappy blunderer resembled the Irish 
gentleman who complained that he could not open his mouth 
without putting his foot into it. Happening to observe to a fel- 
low-guest at Dunraven Castle that the lady who had sat at his 
right hand at dinner was the ugliest woman he had ever beheld^ 
the person addressed expressed his regret that he should think his 
wife so ill-looking. "I have made a mistake," said the horrified 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. 35 

Tuberville; "I meant the lady who sat on my left." "Well, sir, 
she is my sister," was the response to the well-intentioned fib, 
bringing from the desperate connoisseur of beauty and frank 
avowal: "It can't be helped, sir, then; for, if what you say be 
true, I confess I never saw such an ugly family in the course of 
my life ! " 

An honest expression of opinion, perhaps not so easily forgiven 
by the individual concerned, was that wrung from Mark Twain, 
who, standing right before a young lady in a Parisian public gar- 
den, cried out to his friend: "Dan, just look at this girl; how 
beautiful she is!" to be rebuked by "this girl" saying in excellent 
English: "I thank you more for the evident sincerity of the com- 
pliment, sir, than for the extraordinary publicity you have given 
it!" Mark took a walk, but did not feel just comfortable for 
some time afterwards. 

After doing his office for a young couple, a clergyman was in- 
veigled into proposing the health of bride and bridegroom at the 
wedding breakfast. He wound up a neat little speech by express- 
ing the hope that result of the union of the happy pair might 
prove strictly analogous to that of the bride's honored parents. 
The groom looked angry, the bride went into hysterics, the 
bridesmaids blushed and became interested in the pattern of the 
carpet, the master of the house blew his nose with extraordinary 
violence, and the speaker sat down wondering at the effect he 
had created; till his better-informed neighbor whispered that the 
lady was not the daughter of the host and hostess, but a niece 
who came to live with them when her mother and father were 
divorced. 

When a note was handed to Dr. Fletcher in his pulpit intima- 
ting that the presence of a medical gentleman, supposed to be in 
the church, was urgently required elsewhere, the preacher read 
the letter out, and, as the Doctor was making for the door, 
fervently ejaculated, "May the Lord have mercy on his patient!" 

An unpleasant way of putting the thing was innocently adopted 
by the New York car-driver, who, blissfully ignorant that his 
interlocutor was Mr. Beecher, replied to that gentleman's query 



$6 ENTER! AINING Amusing. 

whether he did not think it possible to dispense with running the 
cars all day on Sunday: "Yes, sir, I do; but there's no hope for 
it so long as they keep that Beecher theatre open in Brooklyn ; 
the cars have to run to accommodate that." 



An Anecdote of Prof. Henry. 

"I met him," writes a Boston friend, "but once at Montreal. — 
I noticed that this fine looking man, when he arrived at the hotel 
in Montreal, was placed at the head of our table, but did not 
know who he was. He came home by the same route, and at 
the same time with us, and was very kind and courteous to my 
traveling companions, as well as myself. What I remember more 
distinctly than anything else was a 'happening' at Rouse's Point 
while we were waiting for the steamer. The Professor was talk- 
ative and communicative in his quiet way, and was full of inci- 
dents of travel and adventure. Soon the steamer appeared in 
sight, and while she was approaching us the Professor sat upon 
the wharf looking dreamily at her. Presently he aroused himself 
and said : ' I see a peculiar sparkle of the waves near the side of 
the steamer, where the sun shines upon her' (it was almost sun- 
set.) 'I wonder what the cause of it is? I have seen phospho- 
rescent light before, but never exactly like this. And see! there 
it is also upon the other, the darker side of the steamer. Well, 
certainly that is very curious.' We looked, and indeed it seemed 
remarkable. First upon the bright side of the steamer, and then 
upon the dark side, would appear those curious flashes of light, 
and disappear almost instantly. They seemed to come at reg- 
ular intervals, and it was beautiful as well as strange. Our reve- 
ries were rudely disturbed, however, by one of the customs in- 
spectors approaching. 

" 'Looking at them flashes?' 

" 'Yes,' said the Professor. 'I wonder what they are?' 
" 'Oh, them's hot ashes they are throwing out of the ash-pits.' 
"The Professor was nonplussed for a moment. Then saying 
quietly, 'Well, well, live and learn — live and learn,' he lapsed 
into silence. " 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. 37 

Judgment Invited on the Evidence. 

Hugo Richards tells a laughable story of two friends who were 
attacked by Indians in Arizona. They were both on muleback 
and the Indians right at their heels letting the arrows fly past 
them as thick as a swarm of grasshoppers in Kansas. One of 
the mules could outrun the other, and its rider became alarmed 
for the safety of his friend, who was spurring, whipping and yell- 
ing at the animal to urge it along, but it could not keep up. The 
foremost man looked back, saw the peril of his friend, and, in a 
frenzy bordering on despair, sang out : 

"Joe, why don't you come along?" 

Joe, whose legs and hands were flying in the air like the arms 
of a runaway windmill in a storm, could not let the opportunity 
pass, and as an arrow flitted by his ear, which, if possible, in- 
creased his exertions, he exclaimed, "Do I act like a man that 
was throwing off ? " 



An Exciting Railroad Story. 

There were four of us in one of the cars on the Lyons Rail- 
road. Four smokers — a fact which had naturally a tendency to 
bring us into sympathetic relations. I forgot exactly how we 
fell into conversation, but at any rate, by the time we had got to 
Villeneuve the conversation was general on the subject of rail- 
road accidents. We had all told stories of more or less interest, 
garnished with the greatest amount of danger possible, when the 
only one among us who had not yet furnished a budget of ad- 
venture said: 

"All that, gentlemen, is undoubtedly extremely interesting, but 
will you allow me to say that the whole of the singular accidents 
of which you have spoken are as nothing compared to a railroad 
catastrophe which happened some years ago in England, and at 
which I was unwillingly present!" 

Very naturally, this beginning awakened our interest, and Ave 
entreated him to go on. "Willingly, gentlemen," said our travel- 
ing companion. "As I said before, it was in England, about five 



3% ENTERTAINING Amusing. 

years ago. I had taken the Bristol train at six o'clock in the 
morning — a morning that I shall never forget — for a little village 
some twenty miles off. We had been going along very smoothly, 
when, from the railroad carriage in which I was placed — the first 
on the train — the noise of a violent quarrel reached me. I looked 
out of the window. The noise came from the locomotive, where 
a fight had begun between the engineer and the fireman. I 
learned later the cause of the dispute, which, I might as well say 
now, arose from jealousy of some woman. It had long burned 
in their hearts, and now that the explosion had come it was 
violent. 

"I was, as I said, gentlemen, at the window looking out, when 
the noise was redoubled. The struggle was becoming furious. 
The two men were fighting like wild beasts. You shudder, gen- 
tlemen. Ah! I shudder still when I saw — what I shall never 
cease to see. The two men writhed out of the engine in their 
agony and rolled off. The train was going at the rate of twenty 
miles an hour. Left to itself the engine went faster and faster. 
The fields, the trees, the houses disappeared in a way that made 
my head swim. We passed a station. We scarcely had time to 
see it. Another one was passed, a third, a fourth. Cries of hor- 
ror were heard from the different coaches. We felt that we were 
lost. Already I could see the little depot at the end of the route; 
nothing could save us from being dashed to pieces. I resigned 
myself to fate and shut my eyes. " 

"Fontainebleau! Fontainebleau!" broke in the voice of the 
conductor, interrupting the story of our companion. "Sorry, 
gentlemen, but I get out here. " 

And, bowing politely, he disappeared. None of us ever heard 
the end of that story. 



Excuse for Second Marriage. 

A neero minister who married rather sooner after the death of 
his wife than some of the sisters thought proper and becoming, 
excused himself as follows: "My dear brederen and sisters, my 
grief was greater dan I could bear. I turned ebery way for 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. 39 

peace and comfort, but none came. I sarched de scripturs from 
Ginisee to Rebelation, and found plenty promises to de widder, 
but nary one to de widderer. So I took it dat de good Lord 
dindn't waste sympathy on a man when it was in his power to 
comfort hisself; and habin a fuss-rate chance to marry in de 
Lord, I did so, and would do so again. Besides, brederen, I 
consider dat poor Patsey was juss as dead as she would 
ever be." 

Daniel Webster and his Tenant. 

When Webster was practicing law in Portsmouth, N. H., early 
in the legal career which was to become so brilliant, he purchased 
a small farm near the White Movntains, with its buildings. He 
left the tenant who was living there at the time he acquired 
the legal title to "the farm," in possession. After his removal 
to Boston, he heard nothing of his White Mountain estate 
for several years. One summer, as he journeyed north with 
his wife in quest of recreation, he resolved to turn aside from 
the traveled road and ascertain the true condition of his property. 
He found a very miserable hut upon it, occupied by an aged 
woman as the only tenant of his farm. He asked for a glass of 
water, which she readily served in a tin dipper. He then began 
to make inquiries about her prosperity, and the present condi- 
tion of things around her. She said that she did not own the 
farm, but that it belonged to a lawyer down in Boston by the 
name of Webster. 

"Does he often come to see you, my good woman?" said Mr. 
Webster. 

"No," replied she; "he has never been near his land since I 
lived here. " 

"Well," said he, "what rent does he make you pay for the oc- 
cupancy of his farm?" 

"Rent?" she exclaimed, "I don't pay him any rent. It is bad 
enough living here without paying anything for it; and if he 
don't fix up the house, I don't mean to stay here freezing to 
death much longer!" 



4o ENTERTAINING Amusing. 

"Well, madam, " returned the kind-hearted proprietor, "it is 
a pretty hard case, I confess. If you will accept this bill, [$5] 
toward your holding on for another year, I will speak to Mr. 
Webster when I next see him, and perhaps he will do something 
more for you. " 

So he took final leave of his valuable farm and his interesting 
tenant. 



Mark Twain's Amusing Sequels to Several Anecdotes. 

All my life, from boyhood up, I have had the habit of reading 
a certain set of anecdotes written in the quaint vein of the 
World's ingenious Fabulist, for the lesson they taught me and 
the pleasure they gave me. They lay always convenient to my 
hand, and whenever I thought meanly of my kind I turned to 
them, and they banished that sentiment; whenever I felt myself 
to be selfish, sordid, and ignoble, I turned to them, and they 
told me what to do to win back my self-respect. Many times 
I wished that the charming anecdotes had not stopped with 
their happy climaxes, but had continued the pleasing history 
of the several benefactors and beneficiaries. This wish rose 
in my breast so persistently that at last I determined to sat- 
isfy it by seeking out the sequels of those anecdotes myself. So 
I set about it, and after great labor and tedious research accom- 
plished my task. I will lay the result before you, giving you each 
anecdote in its turn, and following it with its sequel as I gathered 
it through my investigations. 

The Grateful Poodle — One day a benevolent physician 
(who had read the books), having found a stray poodle suffering 
from a broken leg, conveyed the poor creature home, and, after 
setting and bandaging the injured limb, gave the little out-cast 
his liberty again, and thought no more about the matter. But 
how great was his surprise, upon opening his door one morning, 
some days later, to find the grateful j:>oodle patiently waiting 
there, and in its company another stray dog, one of whose legs, 
by some accident,, had been broken. The kind uhvsician at once 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. 41 

relieved the distressed animal, nor did .he forget to admire the 
inscrutable goodness and mercy of God, who had been willing to 
use so humble an instrument as the poor outcast poodle for the 
inculcating of, etc., etc., etc. 

Sequel. — The next morning the benevolent physician found the 
two dogs, beaming with gratitude, waiting at his door, and with 
them two other dogs, — cripples. The cripples were speedily 
healed, and the four went their way, leaving the benevolent phy- 
sician more overcome by pious wonder than ever. The day 
passed, the morning came. There at the door sat now the four 
reconstructed dogs, and with them four others requiring recon- 
struction. This day also passed, and another morning came; 
and now sixteen dogs, eight of them newly crippled, occupied the 
sidewalk and the people were going around. By noon the broken 
legs were all set, but the pious wonder in the good physician's 
breast was beginning to get mixed with involuntary profanity. 
The sun rose once more, and exhibited thirty-two dogs, sixteen 
of them with broken legs, occupying the sidewalk and half of the 
street; the human spectators took up the rest of the room. The 
cries of the wounded, the songs of the healed brutes, and the 
comments of the on-looking citizens made great and inspiring 
cheer, but trafic was interrupted in that street. The good physi- 
cian hired a couple of assistant surgeons and got through his 
benevolent work before dark, first taking the precaution to cancel 
his church membership, so that he might express himself with 
the latitude which the case required. 

But some things have their limits. When once more the morn- 
ing dawned, and the good physician looked out upon a massed and 
far-reaching multitude of clamorous and beseeching dogs, he said, 
"I might as well acknowledge it, I have been fooled by the books; 
they only tell the pretty part of the story, and then stop. Fetch 
me the shot-gun; this thing has gone along far enough." 

He issued forth with his weapon, and chanced to step upon the 
tail of the original poodle, who promptly bit him in the leg. Now 
the great and good work which this poodle had been engaged in 
had engendered in him such a mighty and augmenting enthu- 



42 ENTERTAINING Amusing. 

siasm as to turn his weak head at last and drive him mad. A 
month later, when the benevolent physician lay in the death 
throes of hydrophobia, he called his weeping friends about him, 
and said: 

"Beware of the books, They tell but half of the story. 
Whenever a poor wretch asks you for help, and you feel a doubt 
as to what result may follow from your benevolence, give yourself 
the benefit of the doubt and kill the applicant." 

And so saying, he turned his face to the wall and gave up the 
ghost. 

The Grateful Husband. — One day a lady was driving 
through the principal street of a great city with her little boy, 
when the horses took fright and dashed madly away, hurling the 
coachman from his box and leaving the occupants of the car- 
riage paralyzed with terror. But a brave youth who was driving 
a grocery wagon threw himself before the plunging animals, and 
succeeded in arresting their flight at the peril of his own.* The 
grateful lady took his number, and upon arriving at her home 
related the heroic act to her husband (who had read the books), 
who listened with streaming eyes to the moving recital, and who, 
after returning thanks, in conjunction with his restored loved ones, 
to Him who surTereth not even a sparrow to fall to the ground un- 
noticed, sent for the brave young person, and, placing a check 
for $500 in his hand, said: "Take this as a reward for your no- 
ble act, William Ferguson, and, if ever you shall need a friend, 
remember that Thompson McSpadden has a grateful heart. " 

Let us learn from this that a good deed cannot fail to benefit 
the doer, however humble he may be. 

Sequel. — William Ferguson called the next week and asked 
Mr. McSpadden, to use his influence to get him a higher em- 
ployment, he feeling capable of better things than driving a gro- 
cer's wagon. Mr. McSpadden got him an under-clerkship at a 
good salary. 

Presently William Ferguson's mother fell sick, and William — 
well, to cut the story short, Mr, McSpadden consented to take 
her into his house. Before long she yearned for the society of 

*This is probably a misprint. — M. T. 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. 43 

her younger children : so Mary and Julia were admitted also, 
and little Jimmy, their brother. Jimmy had a pocket-knife, and 
he wandered into the drawing-room with it one day, alone, and 
reduced $10,000 worth of furniture to an indeterminable value 
in rather less than three quarters of an hour. A day or two 
later he fell down-stairs and broke his neck, and seventeen of 
his family's relatives came to the house to attend the funeral. 
This made them acquainted, and they kept the kitchen occupied 
after that, and likewise kept the McSpaddens busy hunting up sit- 
uations of various sorts for them, and hunting up more when they 
wore these out. The old woman drank a good deal and swore a 
good deal; but the grateful McSpaddens knew it was their duty 
to reform her, considering what her son had done for them, so they 
clave nobly to their generous task. William came often and 
got decreasing sums of money, and asked for higher and more 
lucrative employments, — which the grateful McSpadden more or 
less promptly procured for him. McSpadden consented also, 
after some demur, to fit William for college ; but when the first 
vacation came, and the hero requested to be sent to Europe for 
his health, the persecuted McSpadden rose against the tyrant 
and revolted. He plainly and squarely refused. William Fer- 
guson's mother was so astounded that she let her gin-bottle drop 
and her profane lips refused to do their office. Whe she recov- 
ered, she said in a half-gasp, "Is this your gratitude? Where 
would your wife and boy be now but for my son?" 

William said, "Is this your gratitude! Did I save your wife's 
life or not? Tell me that!" 

Seven relations swarmed in from the kitchen and each said, 
"And this is his gratitude!" 

William's sisters stared, bewildered, and said, "And this is his 

grat " but were interrupted by their mother, who burst into 

tears and exclaimed, "To think that my sainted little Jimmy 
threw away his life in the service of such a reptile!" 

Then the pluck of the revolutionary McSpadden rose to the 
occasion, and he replied with fervor, "Out of my house, the 
whole beggarly tribe of you! I was beguiled by the books, but 



44 ENTERTAINING Amusing. 

shall never be beguiled again, — once is sufficient for me. " And 
turning to William, he shouted, "Yes you did save my wife's 
life, and the next man that does it shall die in his tracks!" 

Not being a clergyman, I place my text at the end of my ser- 
mon instead of at the beginning. Here it is, from Mr. Noah 
Brooks' Recollections of President Lincoln. 

"J. H. Hackett, in his part of Falstaff, was an actor who gave 
Mr Lincoln great delight. With his usual desire to signify to 
others his sense of obligation, Mr. Lincoln wrote a genial little 
note to the actor, expressing his pleasure at witnessing his per- 
formance. Mr. Hackett, in reply, sent a book of some sort; 
perhaps it was one of his own authorship. He also wrote sev- 
eral notes to the President. One night, quite late, when the epi- 
sode had passed out of my mind, I went to the White House in 
answer to a message. Passing into the President's office, I no- 
ticed, to my surprise, Hackett sitting in the anteroom as if wait- 
ing for an audience. The President asked me if any one was 
outside, On being told, he said, half sadly, 'Oh, I can't see him, 
I can't see him : I was in hopes he had gone away.' Then he 
added, 'Now this just illustrates the difficulty of having pleas- 
ant friends and acquaintances in this place. You know how I 
liked Hackett as an actor and how I wrote to tell him so. He 
sent me that book and there I thought the matter would end. 
He is a master of his place in the profession, I suppose, and well 
fixed in it; but just because we had a little friendly correspon- 
dence, such as any two men might have, he wants something. 
What do you suppose he wants? I could not guess, and Mr. Lin- 
coln added. ' Well, he wants to be Consul to London. Oh, dear !' " 

I will observe, in conclusion, that the William Ferguson inci- 
dent occurred, and within my personal knowledge, though I have 
changed the nature of the details to keep William from recogni- 
zing himself in it. 

All the readers of this article have in some sweet and gushing 
hour of their lives played the role of Magnanimous-Incident 
hero. I wish I knew how many there are among them who are 
willing to talk about that episode, and like to be reminded of 
the consequences that flowed from it. 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. 45 

Catfish Stories, as told by Sambo, Et. Al. 

A negro does-not like to be excelled in the telling of a story, 
as the following shows : Two of them were seated on the lee 
side of a stack of skids, down on the Levee at Memphis, sun- 
ning themselves and taking a noonday rest, when a couple of 
small boys came along with fishing-poles slung over their shoul- 
ders, and each one carrying an oyster-can filled with bait. 

"Wish I was goin' fishin' to-day," remarked Sambo, one of the 
darkies 

"Wat you want to fish heah fur: Can't ketch nuthin' anyhow. 
Jes ought to go down 'bout de mouf of de Red Riber, ef yer 
ketch fish. Tell you, I'se seen bigger fish hauled out der river 
down dar an' at Orleans dan you eber saw, chile!" 

"Not much. I'se saw a catfish dat weighed nigh onto 500 
pounds hauled out at Memfis, an' I help ketch him, too. " 

"No! how's dat?" 

"O you'd say it was a confounded lie if I should tell it; but 
I'll tell ye anyhow. I was runnin' on de Susie Silber at de time, 
an' we'd heared lots 'bout big catfish bein' in de riber dat yeah. 
One day while we's layin at de wharf at Memfis, 'nuther fellah 
an' me thought we'd try fer some ob de tings. So we got hold 
one dese big whale-hooks 'bout a foot long, an' baited it wid a 
side er bacon we hooked from de hole " 

Hold on, dar now, ole fellar, you's lyin'. Can't palm dat off 
on me," interrupted his companion. 

"Yas, sah, dat's de truf, suah's I'm a livin', niggah. We tied 
de line to de gang-plank to keep 'em from runnin' off wid de 
hook an' line; but might as well tied it roun' a straw, for a big 
whale of a catfish jus' took de hook, line, gang-plank an all, an' 
'way he went." 

"Run off wid de gang-plank," said the second darkey; "'shaw, 
dat's nuffin' ! I saw one dem cats run off wid a whole boat onet, 
an' I'se on de boat at de time. " 

"Now, niggah, jes look yah, dat's too much for me; how he 
do it?" 



46 ENTERTAINING Amusing 

We throwed de anchor one rainy night; one dem big catfish 
jus' swallowed de anchor an' off he darted for New Orleans. " 

"No!" 

"Yes, he did fur fac', I swar he did. 'Twas when I'se on de 
old Natchez, and you kin eat me ef we wasn't goin down de 
riber fas' we could nex' mornin', an' de anchor still overboard. 
When we went to haul her in, blame me if der was any anchor 
der, — doggoned catfish jus' eat it up." 

A third darkey joined the party in time to hear the second story. 

"You fellahs don't know nuffin' 'bout catfish," said he; "why, 
I knows a catfish dot got away wid foah great big barges at one 
time. " 

"De mischief yer say," and Yes, yeah do," from the other two. 

" Yes, sah ! " 

Daniel Webster and the Farmer. 

Webster was out one day on the marshes near Marshfield, bu- 
sily shooting birds. It was a hot afternoon in August. The 
farmers were getting their salt hay on the marshes: 

He came, in the course of his rambles, to the Green-Harbor 
River, which he wished to cross. He beckoned to one of the 
men on the opposite. bank to take him over in his boat, which 
lay moored in sight. The man at once left his work, came over, 
and paddled Mr. Webster across the stream. He declined the 
payment offered him, but lingered a moment, with Yankee cu- 
riosity, to question the stranger. He surmised who Mr. Webster 
was, and with some hesitation, remarked : 

"This is Daniel Webster, I believe." 

"That is my name," replied the sportsman. 

"Well, now," said the farmer, "I am told you can make from 
$3 to $5 a day, pleading cases up in Boston. " 

Mr. Webster replied that he was sometimes so fortunate as to 
receive that amount for his services. 

"Well, now," returned the rustic, "it seems tome, I declare, if 
I could get as much in the city pleadin' law-cases, I would not be 
a-wadin' over these marshes this hot weather, shootin' little birds. 




^cc^cv^SaPW^ 



The Huntsman. 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. 47 

He Wanted a Better Dog. 

A "digger" from California, eulogizing the climate, says: — 
"There's a mountain there — the Sawyer Navady, they call it— > 
with a valley on each side of it — the one hot, and t'other cold. 
Well? Get on the top of that mountain with a double-barreled 
gun, and you can, without movin', kill either Summer or Winter 
game, just as you will." "What! have you ever tried it?" — 
"Tried! often — and should have done pretty well but for one 
thing." "Well, what was that?" "I wanted a dog that would 
stand both climates. The last dog I had froze off his tail while 
pintin' on the Summer side. He didn't get entirely out of the 
Winter side, you see." 



The Phonograph in Georgia. 

"Una Remus," asked a tall, awkward looking negro, who 
was one of a crowd surrounding the old man in front of James' 
Bank, "Wat's dis 'ere wa't dey calls de fongraf — dis 'ere instru- 
ment wa't kin holler 'roun' like little chillum in de back yard?" 
"I ain't seed um, " said Uncle Remus, feeling in his pocket for a 
fresh chew of tobacco, "I ain't seed um, but I hear talk un um. 
Miss Sally wuz a readin' in de papers las' Chuesday, an' she say 
dat it's a mighty big whatyoumaycallem. " "A mighty big 
which," asked one of the crowd. "A mighty big whatshisname, " 
answered Uncle Remus. "I wuzzent up dar close to whar Miss 
Sa'ah was reedin' but I kinder geddered in dat it wuz one er dese 
'ere whatshisnamzes w'at holler into one year an' it comes out at 
de odder. Hit's mighty funny unto me how dese folks kin go 
an' prognosticate dere eckoes intu one er deze yer i'on boxes, 
an' dar hit'll stay ontwell de man comes 'long an' turns de han- 
dle an' lets de fuss come pilin' out. Bimeby dey'll git ter ma- 
kin' shore-nuff people, an' den dere'll be a racket 'roun here. — 
Dey tells me dat it goes off like one er dese 'ere torpedoes. " — 
"You hear dat, don't you?" said one or two of the younger ne- 
groes. "Dat's w'at dey tells me, " continued Uncle Remus. — 
"Dat's w'at dey sez. Hit's one er dese yer kinder w'atsiznames 



48 ENTERTAINING Amusing. 

dat sasses back when you hollers at it." "Wat dey fix um up 
fer den?" asked one of the practical negroes. "Dat's wat I 
want er know," said Uncle Remus, contemplatively. "But dat's 
wat Miss Sally was reedin' in de paper. All you gotter do is 
holler at de box, an' dar's no remarks. Dey goes in, an* dar 
dey are tooken, an' dar dey hangs on twell you shakes de box, 
an' den dey drops out des er dese yere fishes wat you git from 
Savannah, an' you ain't got time fer ter look at dere gills nee- 
der?" 



"Dot Mexico Through." 

Two Germans met in San Francisco recently. After affection- 
ate greeting, the following dialogue ensued: 
"Fen you said you hef arrived?" 
"Yesterday." 

"You came dot horn around?" 
"No." 

"Oh! I see, you come dot Isthmus across?"" 
"No." 

"Den you hef not arrived." 
"Oh, yes! I hef arrived. I come dot Mexico through." 



Uncle Sile's Gospel Horn. 

Early in the summer of 1869, Ralf Elmore erected a log cabin 
upon the south fork of Clear Creek, about a mile above the pres- 
ent mining village of Georgetown, in Clear Creek County, Col- 
orado. He was a young man of liberal education, a book-read- 
er, and an atheist. Upon a shelf that ranged over the fire- 
place of his cabin might be seen a few smoky volumes, consist- 
ing of Bible, Volney's "Ruins," Payne's "Age of Reason," and 
a part of the works of Rosseau and Voltaire. He was a calm, 
unexcitable, good-natured fellow, and nothing seemed to delight 
him so much as a controversy with one of those Gospel her- 
alds that were often met with in those days upon the border, cal- 
ling it to repentance and a remembrance of the Sabbath day. — 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. 49 

Perhaps the most noted of them was Silas G. Clark, or "Uncle 
Sile, " as he was familiarly called. These Gospel pioneers were 
often camp-meeting converts from among the hunters of Mis- 
souri, Kentucky, and Illinois, who had crossed the Great Amer- 
ican Desert with Hawkins' long flint-lock rifle upon their shoulders 
in pursuit of adventure associated with missionary labors ; and 
having provided themselves with a hymn-book and Bible, tin horn 
and a venerable pony, meek with years and lowly in flesh, they 
would sally forth among the mining-camps of the border, hewing 
away the roughness of the pioneer, that he might be prepared for 
the coming of a more educated ministry. 

Uncle Sile was always a welcome guest at our cabin, and on 
one occasion as we were preparing for him its evening hospital- 
ity, Elmore came in, being on his way home from Denver: he 
had hardly become seated when "Uncle Sile" turning upon his 
seat towards him, threw his head downward so as to bring his 
gaze to bear from over the top of his spectacles, and after eye- 
ing him for a time, he observed: "Young man, do you believe 
in the soundings of the Gospel-horn? ,f Elmore paused for a 
moment to make a survey of the source from which this unex- 
pected question came, and then led off with a reply that soon 
led to a warm Biblical discussion. Uncle Sile would occasion- 
ally get a little confused, when he would stop short, give a toot 
upon his horn, the Gospel soundings of which would seem to 
rouse him up, when he would start off anew, with seemingly 
more clear and vigorous ideas. Presently Elmore began to 
weave around him the net-work of his atheistical doctrines, and 
at length, having crowded the old man into a tight place, Uncle 
Sile began to cough and breathe heavily, occasionally wiping 
the perspiration from his brow with his coat-sleeve, when, in the 
midst of a sentence, he paused and became silent. Turning to 
look upon him, we discovered that a cloud of wrath had settled 
upon his brow, which was fast spreading downward over the fea- 
tures of his face, and as it culminated upon his quivering lip he 
sprang to his feet, and, bringing his fists together, he exclaimed : 
"You ungodly heathen, I ken lick more Gospel into you than 
4 



50 ENTERTAINING Amusing. 

you desarve, an' I'll do it.!" Thereupon uncle Sile began to 
throw his buckskins, when Elmore made for the outlet of the 
cabin, and we saw him no more that night. The old man paced 
up and down the room for a time, occasionally going to the door 
and throwing upon the stillness of the night a blast of triumph 
from his horn, when at length he observed : "I know'd wqn 
I got rite up I could make that ongodly heathen take water 
mity quick. Yer see, capun," bringing his fist down upon the 
table, "the Gospel will win every time if yer will only give her a 
a fair show. " 

The horn of the old man has long since ceased to sound its 
Gospel-calls along the rocky windings of Clear Creek Valley, 
and on the mountain side; among the silver firs, the miners dug 
his grave, and carved his name upon the moaning pine. Here 
is the exordium of a sermon delivered by him to a gathering 
of miners one Sunday morning : 

"My beloved brethren, the sarmin that I shell talk on is about 
this, 'Remember the Sabbeth day an' keep it holy.' Now, my 
friends, it were las' Saterday nite a week ago, when Ike Miller 
santered over to my cabin, an' sez he, 'Uncle Sile, s'pose we 
take a hunt ter nite fur that bob-tail wildcat that's hangen 'round 
arter my last chicken.' An' sez I, 'Agreed.' I were always 
mighty fond o' coon-huntin' down in the Ohio bottoms, an' so 
we tuck doun on Clare Creek, an' arter santerin' round thro' the 
timber and shien keerfully along up the north fork an' the moon 
had got smartly up, an' nary cat out, we kinder leaned towards 
hum, when Ike's dog opened on Spring Branch with his nateral 
yelp, an' when we got thar the cat had tuk a fur tree, an' Ike hed 
chopt his foot rite smartly the day afore, helpen' Joe Chappy 
thro a shingle tree. An' so, my beloved hearers, it kinder fell 
on me to go up arter the varmint, an' when I got up to war the 
critter sot, an' war about to grab him by the stump an' slat him 
doun, I seed by the shinin' of his eyes that he had an onusal 
long tail. An' just then thar was a Gospel feelin' come over me 
rite smartly, an' sez I, 'Ike, 'bout what time mout it be?' an' 
says he, 'Why Uncle Sile, I reckon it's clus on to mornin,' an' 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. 51 

sez I, 'If that 7 s so, it's the Sabbeth day, an' this here varmint 
may go.' An' so I ckim down agin, an' now, my beloved hear- 
ers, that's what the gospel sez — 'Remember the Sabbeth day 
and keep it holy.' " 

Here Uncle Sile gave a toot upon his horn, took a drink from 
a tin cup, and then launched forth into his discourse. 



His Melons. 

A policeman discovered a negro and a big watermelon in close 
company in an alley, and refusing the tempting slice held out 
to him, he said : 

"You stole that melon on the market!" 

"Dars whar' yer off de tow-path, boss — way off one side," was 
the calm reply. 

"Did you buy it? Come along and point out the man you 
bought it from. " 

"No, I didn't buy de melon, boss — I traded fur it." 

"What did you trade." 

"Now, boss, what's de use? Heah I is, heah am de melon, 
an' we am jes' eatin' each odder up like a tornady. " 

"What did you trade?" persisted the officer. 

"Wall, if I mus' tell, den I mus'. I traded a mule an' a wag- 
in' fur dis melon. " 

"I don't believe it." 

"I spected you wouldn't, boss, kase you doan' realize like I 
do how cheap mules an' wagins hez become, an' how de price 
of melons hez scooted up. " 

"You'll have to come along," said the officer. 

"Now, boss!" 

The officer stepped forward and discovered two more melons 
behind a box. He turned for an explanation, and the negro 
said: 

"De man frew in dese odder two melons kase I frew in a 
halter 'long wid de mule ! De price of halters am way down, 
boss." 



52 ENTERTAINING Amusing. 

Colorado Distances. 

A Denver correspondent writes: "All accustomed and habit- 
ual notions of distance brought hither from the East are worse 
than useless in this rare and transparent atmosphere. From the 
windows of Denver the Rocky Mountains look not more than 
five miles distant, and an eastern tourist, lately arrived, remarked 
to his friends the other evening that he believed he could walk 
out to the mountains the next morning and return before break- 
fast. He was permitted to depart, as he had announced, and 
after an hour or two a carriage was dispatched to overtake and 
bring him in. The exhausted pedestrian was found partially un- 
dressed on the edge of one of the little irrigating ditches, two 
or three feet wide, which intersect the field in every direction, 
and when asked what he intended to do, he answered that he 
"proposed to swim that river." "Why don't you jump across?" 
"How do I know but it's half a mile wide?" answered the tired 
and disgusted traveler, who will not soon repeat his experiment 
of walking twenty miles before breakfast. 



No Use Fighting Against Fate. 

A boy, about 13 years old, was Saturday forenoon dragging a 
big, sneakish-looking cur along High street to find an owner for 
the canine. Ringing a door-bell he said to the housemaid who 
answered it: 

" I've brought your dog home. " 

"My dog!" she exclaimed, as she looked down upon the em- 
barrassed dog. 

"Yes; you gimme two shillings and I'll tie him up in the back 
yard." 

"I'll give you a broom-sticking if you don't leave!" she 
screamed, as she grabbed for him, 

He dragged the dog across the street to where a girl was scrub- 
bing the front steps, and, bringing a smile to his face, he said : 

"Your feller in Chicago sent you this dorg by express to put 



Amusing., ANECDOTES. 53 

in your Christmas stocking. The charges are fifty cents. Where 
shall I tie him up?" 

"Git out with ye — I'm no geeenhorn!" she said, as she raised 
the brush to hit him. 

The boy pulled on the rope with both hands and got the reluc- 
tant dog half a block farther, when he met a boy carrying home 
ten pounds of buckwheat flour. He blocked- the way and said : 

"Bub, yer father told me to bring this dorg up to you and col- 
thirty cents. " 

"I hain't got no farther," answered the lad. 

"Who said you had — I was only fooling. Say, bub, this 'ere 
is the beautifulest dorg you ever sot eyes on. He kin sing, 
dance, clean off the snow from the walk, and bring in rabbits 
from the country. I'll take a quarter for him," 

"I hain't got no money," replied the boy. 

"I'll trade him for a knife." 

"I hain't got no knife." 

"Any old skates?" 

"No," answered the boy with the flour, as he dodged around 
the dog and hurried on. 

The other looked down on the canine with mingled sadness 
and indignation. The dog braced back at an acute angle, his 
eyes shut, and his tail lying on the walk, waiting for the boy to 
say: 

"Oh you dog! I kept you hid away for a week, and I've 
nauled you all over town, and you ain't even a three-cent dog. 
I've fit fate for more'n a month to get some chink for Christmas, 
and here I am, dead broke and no assets but you, you old sole 
leather colored skulk ! I've got desperate. " 

He slackened on the rope to administer a kick, and the dog 
made a jump and gained his liberty. He ran off around the 
corner, and the boy leaned against a tree-box and mused : 

"There's only one plan left. I'll take paregoric enough to 
make me sleep from Monday night to Wednesday morning, and 
I won't know nothin' 'bout Christmas nor nothin' !" 



54 ENTERTAINING Amusing. 

The Bankruptcy Question. 

"Boggs," said Mrs. B. suddenly, looking up from the paper 
she was reading, "why don't you go into bankruptcy and have 
some style about you?" 

"Go into bankruptcy?" repeated Boggs, what for?" 

"Because it is the fashion," replied Mrs. B. "Everybody who 
is any body goes into Bankruptcy now-a-days. Our neighbors 
are all getting the start of us. Here's Soggs, who lives across 
the street, he is in the list to-day. Now we have lived in this 
town a good deal longer than Soggs has. Why couldn't you 
have got your name in the papers as well as he?" 

"I don't want my name in the papers in that way," said 
Boggs. 

"That's the way; always behind everybody else. We never 
could hold our own along with our neighbors." 

"But we couldn't hold our own if I went into bankruptcy," 
persisted Boggs. 

"Nonsense," cried Mrs. B. " Don't the Squiggses, who 
went into bankruptcy last summer, live just as well, if not a little 
better than before? Now, Boggs, do oblige me by buying a file. " 

"Buying a file? What for?" 

"So that you can file your petition. Do it this very day and 
it will be in the morning papers. Then your wife and children 
can hold their heads up with the best of 'em. Somehow I feel 
that we are under a sort of cloud now. People look at us as 
much as to say: 'There's something the matter with the 
Boggses." * * * 

Then you won't become a bankrupt to maintain our social 
position?" 

"No! I won't," said Boggs, bluntly." 

"Then I give you due notice that I shall receive or make no 
more calls. I shall give up our pew in church and take the 
children out of school. I shall close up the house, give out that 
we have gone into the country, and we will all live in the kitch- 
en. If we can't do like the rest of folks and be somebody, 
there is no use trying to live. " 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. 55 

The Horrors of Boston Water. 

Prof. Reinsch of Boston having carefully tested the water used 
by the Bostonians, announced that the microscope revealed the 
existence of fourteen distinct animals in Boston water, belong- 
ing to the following order: Rhizopoda, lobeza, dinobryina, per- 
iclinia, rotiferae, entomostraca, cladocera, and malacostraca. 

Soon a ter, at a confessional experience meeting of professed 
Boston drunkards, the following confessions were made: "Yes," 
said the first speaker, who clung tottering to the back of his seat, 
"I could have reformed but for the diabolical Rhizopoda in the 
water of Boston. Every swallow I took sent hundreds of these 
Rhizopodas into my system. They reveled in my entrails. — 
They permeated to every nook and cranny of my being. They 
made my life a torment and drove me again to rum." 

"It was the Lobeza that ruined me," said another red-nosed, 
ragged object. "Vainly I tried to reform. Vainly I essayed 
cold water. With myriads of Lobeza in every drop pouring in 
hordes through the diaphragm and rioting in my duodenum, des- 
troying appetite and consuming all the tissues, could I avoid 
the temporary relief afforded by rum? I could not, and here 
I am!" 

A strong taint of bucket-shop gin pervaded the air as the next 
speaker opened his mouth, while delirium glared in his eye. — 
"The Devils of Dinobryina are in me even now. I feel them in 
every nerve like consuming fire. Gin, gin, give me gin ! " and 
he rushed howling from the room. 

"Five years ago," said the fourth speaker, "I swore never to 
touch another drop of liquor. That very day, for the first time, 
I swallowed a glass of Boston Water. A Rotiferae lay there in 
ambush. I swallowed him. Neither by day nor by night has 
that Rotiferae within me ceased his rotations. Sometimes he is 
in my head; sometimes in my heels. Whisky alone will quiet 
his rotations and my misery. " 

"If the prohibitionists," said the next party, "can prohibit 
Periclinia and Entomostracas, let 'em try it on me. I am their 
victim. " 



56 ENTERTAINING Amusing. 

"And I have the Cladoceras," said another. "What avails 
total abstinence and cold water when every draught brings a 
new army of such monsters to devastate one's innards?" 

The last man said: "Mine is the Malacostraca, from the Bos- 
ton water. Dislodge him I cannot. Gin and bitters only will 
quiet him. I have to choose between the agony of the Mala- 
costracas devouring me and drunkenness. " 

Then they all went off together to a lorlorn looking saloon, and 
as they huddled at the bar were heard calling, one after another, 
"I want something for my Rhizopodaz" "Give us an anti-Lo- 
beza cocktail!" "Some Periclinia antidote from the jug in the 
coner there!" "Rotiferaa curative bitters!" "Make me an En- 
tomostraca punch exterminator!" "Gim-me some o' that brandy 
to knock the spots out o' them Cladoceras!" "Quick, bar-keep- 
er, some gin ! The Malacostracas inside o' me are bitin' like 
thunder!" 



Didn't Find Richmond. 

A dozen or more idlers around the Central Market, New York, 
were taking a deep interest in a war map published in a New 
York daily paper, when Brother Gardner, the old colored man, 
pushed his way into the throng and closely studied the map for 
a minute or two. 

"Whar' bouts on dis map is ole Virginny?" he suddenly called 
out. 

"It isn't on there at all," answered one of the crowd. 

"Whar' bouts on dis map is Richmond!" continued Gardner, 
running his finger over the paper in a wild way. 

How do you expect to find Richmond on this map of Eu- 
rope?" asked a bystander. 

"How do I 'spect? Why sah, what has de map of Europe to 
do widout Richmond? Wasn't dar more fightin' aroun' Rich- 
mond den you could scare up in all Europe in ten years? Have 
dey gone an' ignored dat fact? Have dey got out a map an' 
left dat town out in de cold? Somebody find de town for me, 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. 57 

an' I'll show you de exact spot where I was hit in de chin by a 
cannon ball, an' wounded all to pieces. 

"Go away — this is a war map of Turkey and Russia." 

"Widout any Richmond on it?" 

" No, sir — Richmond isn't here. " 

"Den I am gwine right away — gwine to git right out'n dis 
crowd, in a hurry! After all us folks fought an' bled, an' died 
down dar, an' left our bones to bleech in de sun, it's a perfeck 
insult, sah, to come aroun' heah wid a new wah-map showin' de 
Black Sea as big as a meetin-house, an' leavin Richmond clar off 
de fair-grounds entirely! Come away from dat fraud, you cull'd 
folks." 



She Meant Business. 

There is no reason why the inventor of a remedy to "cure the 
worst case of catarrh inside of five minutes" shouldn't feel it his 
duty to place a bottle of the same in every person's hand — 
"price twenty-five cents; no cure, no pay." Therefore, the 
long-legged chap who pulled a door-bell violently on John R. 
Street had none of that timidity in his bearing which character- 
izes rag-buyers, lightning-rod men, and solicitors for the fire suff- 
erers. He had a good thing, and he knew it, and he wanted 
other folks to know it. When the door opened and a hard- 
featured woman about forty years of age confronted him, he 
pleasantly went to business, and asked: 

"Madam, is your husband ever troubled with the catarrh?" 

"Can a man who has been dead seven years be troubled with 
the catarrh?" she grimly replied. 

"But the children are liable to be attacked at any hour ,this 
season," he remarked. 

"Whose children?" 

"Yours, madam." 

"I Never had any, sir! What brought you here any how? — 
Why do you come asking those questions?" 

"Madam, I have compounded a remedy for the catarrh. It 



58 ENTERTAINING Amusing. 

is a good thing. I'll warrant it to knock any case of catarrh sky- 
high in less than five minutes. " 

"Well, sir, what's all this to me." 

"Why madam — why — " he stammered. 

"Do I look as if I needed any catarrh remedies?" she deman- 
ded, as she stepped out on the platform. 

"Madam, I would not for the world have you think that I 
thought you had the catarrh, but I suppose the fair and lovely 
can be attacked, as well as the strong and brave. " 

"And what have I to do with all that rigmarole? Who are 
you, sir, and what do you want?" 

"Madam," he whispered, backing down one step, "I have 
compounded a remedy for the catarrh." 

"Whose catarrh?" 

"Madam, I am selling my catarrh — " 

"Where is your catarrh — where is it?" she interrupted. 

He got down a second step, and softly began : 

"Madam, I have a sure cure for the catarrh, and I am selling 
lots of it. " 

"Well, what do I care! Must you ring my door bell to tell 
me that you are selling lots of catarrh medicine?" 

He got down on the walk, clear off the steps, and he tried 
hard to look beautiful around the mouth as he explained : 

"Madam, didn't I ask you if your husband was ever troubled 
with catarrh ? " 

"Yes, sir, and didn't I reply that he was dead? Do you want 
to see his grave, sir?" 

"No, madam, I do not, I'm sorry he's dead, but my catarrh 
remedy can't help him any. Good-by, madam. " 

"Here, sir, hold a minute!" she called, "what was your busi- 
ness with me?" 

"Why, I have a remedy for the catarrh." 

" So you said before. " 

"I asked you if you didn't want to purchase, and — " 

"You are a falsifier, sir, you never asked me to purchase! 

"Do — you — want — a — bottle?" he slowly asked. 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. ' 59 

"Yes, sir: give me two of them: here's your money! Next 
time you want to sell your catarrh remedy, don't begin to talk 
around about the discovery of America. Here youv'e bothered 
me fifteen minutes, and put all my work behind, and it's good 
for you I didn't bring the broom to the door ! " 

He retreated backward through the gate, his left eye squint- 
ing up and his mouth open. He shut the gate, leaned over it 
and looked long at the front door. By-and-by he said : 

"Well, well! You can never tell where to find 'em." 



Marc Antony's Oration Over Caesar. 

Friends, Romans, countrymen! Lend me your ears 

I will return them next Saturday. I come 

To bury Csesar, because the times are hard, 

And his folks can't afford to hire an undertaker. 

The evil that men do lives after them 

In the shape of progeny, who reap 

The benefit of their life insurance. 

So let it be with the deceased. 

Brutus hath told you Caesar was ambitious. 

What does Brutus know about it? 

It is none of his funeral. Would that it were ! 

Here under leave of you I come to 

Make a speech at Caesar's funeral. 

He was my friend, faithful and just to me; 

He loaned me $5 once when I was in a pinch, 

And signed my petition for a post-office. 

But Brutus says he was ambitious. 

Brutus should wipe off his chin. 

Caesar hath brought many captives home to Rome 

Who broke rock on the streets until their ransoms 

Did the general coffers fill. 

When that the poor hath cried, Caesar hath wept, 

Because it did't cost anything, and 

Made him solid with the masses. 



60 ENTERTAINING Amusing. 

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff, 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious. 

Brutus is a liar, and I can prove it. 

You all did see that on the Lupercal 

I thrice presented him a kingly crown 

Which he did thrice refuse, because it did not fit him quite. 

Was that ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious. 

Brutus is not only the biggest liar in the country, 

But he is a horse-thief of the deepest dye. 

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. 

You all do know this ulster. 

I remember the first time ever Caesar put it on. 

It was on a summer's evening in his tent, 

With the thermometer registering 90 in the shade; 

But it was an ulster to be proud of, 

And cost him $J at Marcaius Swartzmeyer's, 

Corner of Broad and Ferry streets, sign of the red flag. 

Old Swartz wanted $40 for it, 

But finally came down to $7, because it was Caesar! 

Was this ambitious ? If Brutus says it was 

He is a greater liar than old Satan ! 

Look ! in this place ran Cassius' dagger through : 

Through the son of a gun of a Brutus stabbed. 

And when he plucked his cursed steel away, 

Marc Antony, how the blood of Caesar followed it ! 

I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts. 

I am no thief as Brutus is. 

Brutus has the monopoly in all that business, 

And if he had his deserts he would be 

In the penitentiary, and don't you forget it. 

Kind friends, sweet friends, I do not wish to stir you up 

To such a sudden flood of mutiny. 

And as it loooks like rain, 

The pall-bearers will please place the coffin in the hearse, 

And we will proceed to bury Caesar, 

Not to praise him. 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. 61 

A Scared Conductor. 
Sweet are the uses of retributive justice. In passing through 
a train on the New York Central Railroad to collect tickets, the 
conductor encountered, east of Utica, a colored man who had 
neither ticket nor medium of exchange, and, after a desultory 
discussion, stopped the cars and kicked him off the platform. — 
A few weeks afterward, the conductor took a chair in a barber- 
shop in Albany, under the ministration of a colored man. The 
barber covered his customer's face with lather, whipped out a 
glittering razor, and, while he was improving its edge by means 
of a strop that dangled from the wall, remarked to the gentle- 
man in the chair: "Say, boss, you doesen't know me, does 
you?" Does you remember de fellah you lambed from your 
train up at Tribes Hill?" Dat was a bad thing for you to do, 
sah, an' I remembers it well." Right here the conductor bound- 
ed from his chair and danced around the room with the lather 
dripping from his chin and his hair standing on end. He was 
finally induced to resume his seat, on the barber's pledging him- 
self to do no mischief, but he did not enjoy the shave, and 
breathed more freely when he was outside of the shop. 



Anchoring a Horse. 

They tell a good story of an old mariner who keeps a little ho- 
tel down here (writes a correspondent from Coney Island, New 
York's celebrated seaside resort). His wife was very anxious to 
have a horse, an animal in which the old gentleman took but 
little stock, and the old lady finally won her point, and got her 
horse. 

The steed was of an erratic and playful disposition, and used, 
on the least provocation, to tear madly along the beach, and suc- 
ceded in spilling the old lady out several times. At last the 
Captain, who had never driven the beast, volunteered to break 
him of his vicious habit; so, getting another old salt to assist 
him, he procured a kedge anchor with a stout line attached. 

Fastening the end of the line around the axle, and putting 
the anchor in the wagon, the fiery untamed was hitched up, and 



62 ENTERTAINING Amusing. 

the two old gents started out for a drive along the shore. Soon 
the vivacious charger espied something which gave him an ex- 
cuse to run away, and immediately dashed off with frightful 
velocity. 

The Captain dropped the reins, and summoned all hands to 
"let go the anchor." The anchor was let go, and caught firmly 
in the sand. The unsuspecting quadruped pranced joyously 
along until he got to the end of the rope, and then he paused — 
paused so suddenly that the wagon was demolished, and the two 
old gentlemen shot up into the air, like a couple of sky-rockets, 
coming down in a fearfully-dilapidated condition. 



— There is a boy in Dublin so bright, that his mother looks 
at him through smoked glass. 

— Wilson, the celebrated vocalist, was upset one day in his 
carriage. A scotch paper relating the accident, said, "We are 
happy to say, that he was able to appear the following evening 
in three pieces. " 

— A man seing a child playing with a chisel, informed its 
mother that her son had the chisel. "Mercy on me," said the 
woman, "I knew something was the matter, for the child has 
been ailing for some time. " 

— An old woman unable to read, on receiving a letter from 
an absent son, asked a friend to read it to her. It read, "Dear 
mother. " Upon the reader making a stop to find out what fol- 
lowed, as the writing was rather bad, the old lady exclaimed, 
" Oh, it's from poor Jerry, he always stuttered. " 

— "John, did you take the note to Mr. Jones!" "Yes, but I 
don't think he can read it." "Why so, John?" "Because he is 
blind, sir. While I wur in the room, he axed me twice where 
my hat was, and it wur on my head all the time. " 

— A Frenchman showed a sword, which he said was the one 
Balaam had. A spectator said "Balaam, had no sword, only 
wished for one. "Vel, zis is ze sword he wished for." 



Amusing. ANECDOTES. 63 

— During the debate in the Federal Congress, on the estab- 
lishment of an army, a member offered a resolution that it should 
never exceed three thousand men, whereupon Washington 
moved an amendment, that no enemy should ever i?ivade the 
Country with over two thousand men. 

— A young lady being asked where her native place was, re- 
plied, "I have none, I am the daughter of a Methodist preacher. " 

— "It's a great comfort to be left alone," said an Irish lover, 
"especially when your sweet heart is wid you." 

— A Scotch minister said he had preached two and a half 
hours the previous day. A man asked him whether he was not 
tired to death. "Aw, na," said he. "I was as fresh as a rose, 
but it wou^d ha done your heart good to see how tired the con- 
grcgation was." 

— A mother down east was so kind that she gave her child 
chloroform, before she whipped it. " 

— "Father, havn't you had another wife? The Bible says you 
married Anno Domini 1835." 

— Two Irishmen took refuge under the bed clothes from the 
mosquitoes. At last one of them ventured to peep out, and see- 
ing a firefly, said to his companion, "Mickey, it's no use, here's 
one of the craythers searching for us wid a lantern. " 

— "Are you the mate of this ship?" said a passenger to the 
cook. "No, sir, I am the man that cooks the mate " said the 
Irishman. 

— "Are these pure canaries," said a young lady. "Yes, 
ma'am," said the dealer, "I raised them ere birds from canary 
seed. " 

— "Do you like cod-fish balls, Mr. Stubb?" "I do'nt know, 
Miss, I never attend any. " 

— A tourist was found at Mt. Vernon weeping over the sup- 
posed tomb of Washington, but which turned out to be the ice 
house. 



64 ENTERTAINING Amusing. 

— Upon reading the Declaration of Independence, in an east- 
ern town, by a citizen, a countryman being present made this 
comment: "Oh, he read it well enough, but I'm blamed if I 
believe he ever wrote it. " 

— "Do you think raw oysters are healthy?" asked a lady of 
her physician. "Yes, he replied, "I never knew one to com- 
plain.'' 

— The Chinese think dancing a useless fatigue. When Com. 
Anson gave a ball at Canton, a Chinaman, observing the dan- 
cing, said: "Why don't you let your servants do this for you?" 

— A car conductor said to a lady from the country, Miss, 
your fare." "I want none of your impertinence," was the re- 
sponse. 

— Verdict of a jury. "We find the man who stole the horse 
"not guilty." 

— Pat having blistered his fingers in trying on a new pair of 
boots, exclaimed, "I shall never get them on at all, Until I 
wear them a day or two. " 

— A man suddenly made rich bought an expensive carpet — 
He said to a visitor: "There, sir, is one of the best carpets Mr. 
Brussels ever made. " 

— A little Scotch peasant girl arriving at the turnpike gate, on 
the outskirts of Glasgow, asked, "Is this Glasgow?" On be- 
ing answered affirmatively, she said: "Is Peggy in?" Somewhat 
like Dickens, who, on his landing in America, asked the first man 
he met, if he could tell him where Bryant lived. 

— A clergyman who bought his sermon ready written, but 
supposed that fact unknown, preached at a distant church, and 
believing his sermon popular, asked the sexton how it was liked : 
"Very much, we always did like that sermon," was his response, 

— A robust countryman hid as a doctor approached, saying: 
"It is so long since I have been sick, that I am ashamed to look 
a physician in the face. " 




Thomas Alva Edison, p. 103. 



ANECDOTES. 6$ 



PERSONAL. 



Solving The Problem. 

During a critical period of the war, two gentlemen were con- 
sulting with Mr. Lincoln on an important matter which required 
a prompt decision. Observing that other persons were waiting 
one of them remarked that his work seemed to be endless, for 
as soon as one matter was adjusted another arose, and that 
many matters must be brought before him which it would be im- 
possible for any man to settle. "That reminds me of a man 
out West," said Mr. Lincoln. "He lived away out West, where 
he had no neighbors, and worked his farm himself. One day some 
friends visited him and walked out to look at the place. The 
host pointed out the use of this and that lot, and in one which 
he said he was going to plow, the visitors observed an immense 
tree which had been cut down recently. They asked him what 
he was going to do with that big tree. 'Well,' said he, that 
tree has caused me considerable perplexity. I couldn't make up 
my mind just what to do about it. It is so green that I can't 
burn it; it would take ten pair of oxen to drag it off, and I 
have only one pair; and if I take the time necessary to dig a 
hole to bury it in it will make me late with my plowing. This 
morning, however, I solved the problem. I determined just t 
plow around it.' " 
5 



66 ENTERTAINING Personal 

Anecdote of Geo. Washington and Thos. Jefferson. 

The following extract is from a letter written by the noted 
publicist, Francis Lieber, a short time before his death, and was 
directed to his friend, Gen. James A. Garfield. It was dated at 
New York, and, after the formal introduction, it proceeded as 
follows : 

An incident of more than usual interest occured to-day, just 
after the class in Constitutional Law was dismissed, at the Uni- 
versity. I had been lecturing upon the advantages of the bi-ca- 
meral system, had dismissed the class, and was about to leave 
the room, when a young man, who I knew had taken instruction 
under Laboulaye, in Paris, approached me, and said that what I 
had urged in regard to the bi-cameral system reminded him of a 
story which he had heard Laboulaye relate. I was interested, of 
course, and as the class gathered around, he proceeded with the 
following : 

Laboulaye said, in one of his lectures, that Jefferson, who 
had beome so completely imbued with French ideas as even to 
admire the unicameral system of legislation, one day visited 
Washington at Mt. Vernon, and, in the course of the conversa- 
tion that ensued, the comparative excellence of the two sys- 
tems came up for consideration. After considerable had been 
said upon both sides, finally, at the tea-table, Washington turn- 
ing sharply to Jefferson, said : 

"You, sir, have just demonstrated the superior excellence of 
the bi-cameral system, by your own hand. " 

"I! How is that?" said Jefferson, not a little surprised. 

"You have poured your tea from your cup out into the saucer 
to cool. We want the bi-cameral system to cool things. A 
measure originates in one House, and in heat is passed. The 
other House will serve as a wonderful cooler; and, by the time 
it is debated and modified by various amendments there, it is 
much more likely to become an equitable law. No, we can't 
get along without the saucer in our system. " 

Jefferson, of course, saw that a point had been made against 



Personal ANECDOTES. 67 

his argument; but whether he was frank enough to say so, the 
story-teller did not relate. 



Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher. 

The doctor once engaged to preach, by way of exchange, for 
a country minister, and the Sabbath proved to be excessively 
cold and stormy. It was mid-winter, and the snow was piled in 
heaps all along the roads, so as to make the passage very diffi- 
cult. Still the doctor urged his horse through the drifts, till he 
reached the church, put his horse into a shed, and went in. 
As yet, there was no person in the house, and after looking 
about, he took his seat in the pulpit. Soon the door opened, 
and a single individual walked up the aisle, looked about, and 
took a seat. 

The hour came for commencing service, but there were no 
more hearers. Whether to preach to such an audience or not, 
was only a momentary question with Lyman Beecher. He felt 
that he had a duty to perform, and that he had no right to refuse 
to do it, because one man only could reap benefit; and accord- 
ingly he went through all the services, praying, singing, preach- 
ing, and benediction, with one hearer. And when all was over, 
he hastened down ;rom the desk to speak to the "congregation," 
but he had departed. 

So rare a circumstance was, of course, occasionally referred 
to, but twenty years after, a very delightful discovery came to 
light in connection with this service. The good doctor was 
traveling somewhere in Ohio, and on alighting from the stage in 
a pleasant village, a gentleman stepped up to him and familiar- 
ly called him by his name. "I do not remember yon," said Dr. 
B. "I suppose not," said the stranger, "but we spent two 
hours together in a house, alone, once, in a storm." "I do not 
recall it, sir," added the old minister; "pray, where was it?" — 
"Do you remember preaching twenty years ago, in such a place, 
to a single person?" "Yes, yes," said the doctor, grasping his 
hand, "I do indeed; and if you are the man, I have been wish- 



6S ENTERTAINING Personal. 

ing to see you ever since." "I am the man, sir; and that ser- 
mon saved my soul, made a minister of me, and yonder is my 
church ! The converts of that sermon are all over Ohio \ " 

So striking a result made no little impression on the doctor's 
mind. He learned that the man was at the time a lawyer, who 
was in the town on business, and tired of a Sunday morning at 
a country hotel, went despite of the storm, to church, and heard 
that sermon. The doctor added, "I think that was about as 
satisfactory an audience as I ever had." 



Duke of Wellington's Coolness. 

Once, when in a fog in the morning, as he was pursuing the 
French, he found a division of his men, under Sir William Ers- 
kine, much exposed in advance, and nearly separated from the 
rest of the army, and the French in a village within a mile of 
where he was standing. He could see nothing; but on some 
prisoners being brought in, and being asked what French divis- 
ion and how many men were in the village, they, to the dismay 
of every one except Wellington, said that the whole French ar- 
my were there. All he said was, quite coolly, " Oh, they are 
all there, are they? Well, we must mind a little what we are 
about, then. " Another time, soon after the battle of Fuentes 
d'Onore, and when we were waiting in our position near them 
to risk an attack, to protect the sfcge of Almeyda, one morning 
suddenly and early Lord Almeyer came in to him, whilst he ^as 
shaving, to tell him the French were all off, and the last cavalry 
mounting to be gone; the consequence of which movement 
relieved them entirely, gave him Almeyda, and preserved Portu- 
gal. He only took the razor off for a moment, and said, "Ay, I 
thought they meant to be off; very well." And then another 
shave, just as before, and not another word till he was dressed. 
I find, however, it is said he magnifies the French now and then: 
sees double as to the number of blue uniforms, and cannot see 
all the scarlet; but I believe most men in his situation do this 
more or less. 



Personal. ANECDOTES. 69 

Prof. Henry and President Lincoln. 

One day early in the War a loyalist went with much mystery 
to Mr. Lincoln, to whom he desired to communicate informa- 
tion of great importance. He looked suspiciously at an elderly 
and grave gentleman who was seated with the President. "O, 
you needn't mind him," said Mr. Lincoln, "he is my friend, and 
I can trust him." The man went on to say that he had observed 
a light displayed on the tower of the Smithsonian Institution 
every night, at regular intervals, a mysterious light, with myste- 
rious motions, like a signal light. "And," he added in a sugges- 
tive whisper, "they do say that some of them Professors over 
there are Secesh, and maybe they are communicating with the 
rebels. " The President, with a comical smile turned to his com- 
panion and said, "What have you to say to that, Prof. Henry?" 
The Professor, who had sat uneasily during the first part of the 
interview, burst into a hearty laugh. The mysterious light was 
in the lantern of an observer, whose business it was to look alter 
the meteorological apparatus hy night. 



William III. 

There is a pleasant little anecdote about the Hero of the 
Boyne — the hard, stern warrior, with his eagle eye and nose — 
that belongs to Kensington Palace, which we relate in Leigh 
Hunt's words. "A tap was heard one day, at his closet door, 
while his secretary was in attendance. 'W T ho is there?' said the 
King. 'Lord Buck,' answered the little voice of a child of four 
years of age. It was Lord Buckhurst, the son of His Majesty's 
Lord High Chamberlain, the Earl of Dorset. 'And what does 
Lord Buck want?' returned William, opening the door. 'You 
to be a horse to my coach,' rejoined the little magnate; 'I've 
wanted you a long time.' William smiled upon his little friend 
with an amiableness which the secretary had never before 
thought his countenance capable of expressing, and, taking the 
string of the toy in his hand, dragged it up and down the long 
gallery till his playfellow was satisfied. How one likes the story! 
It opens a window in William's harrassed breast, which shows 



7o ENTERTAINING Personal. 

there were genial, loving, and fatherly affections there. It is a 
pity he had not a little boy of his own to play with. 



The Great Economist, Thomas Guy. ' 

This man was so complete an exemplar of economy, that the 
celebrated Vulture Hopkins once called upon him to learn a les- 
son in the art of saving. On being introduced into the parlor, 
Guy, not knowing his visitor, lighted a candle; but when Hop- 
kins said, "Sir, I always thought myself perfect in the art of 
getting and husbanding money, but being told that you far ex- 
ceeded me, I have taken the liberty of waiting upon you to be 
satisfied on this subject." "If this is all your business," replied 
Guy, "we can as well talk it over in the dark as in the light," at 
the same time carefully putting out his farthing candle with the 
the extinguisher. This was evidence enough to Hopkins, who ac- 
knowledged Guy to be his master, and took his leave. 



Anecdote of Chief Ju tice Chase's Parents. 

The late Chief Justice Chase's mother once bore her part in a 
little comedy which was almost Shakspearean. With her hus- 
band she was visiting two of his brothers, who were also married. 
The three gentlemen, sitting and talking together, made some 
playful wagers on the subjects of their wives' tempers, and agreed 
to test them. So, walking into the room where the three ladies 
were seated at the fireside making caps, which at that time were 
very fashionable, the trial began. The first brother, after some 
slighting remarks concerning caps in general, and his wife's handi- 
work in particular, commanded her to throw it in the fire. 
Naturally the indignant lady paid small attention to the order. 
The next brother's attempt met with the same result; but no 
sooner did the Chief Justice's father command his wife to toss 
her cap into the fire, than the cap went into the flames, and that 
in the most prompt, sweet and serene manner. It may, perhaps, 
be unnecessary to add that of the three husbands he was the 
one most thoroughly well managed. 



Personal ANECDOTES. 71 

The True Story of Mary's Little Lamb. 

Among the visitors one day, at aunt Tabitha's bee, in the Old 
South Church, in Boston, was the real Mary, who, when a little 
girl, had the pet lamb for her own, and of which it was writ- 
ten: 

" Mary had a little lamb, 

It's fleece was white as snow ; 
And every where that Mary went, 
The lamb was sure to go." 

She was very willing to tell the story; suppose we listen with 
the rest. Little Mary's name was Mary Sawyer, and she lived 
in Sterling, Mass. She is now Mrs. Tyler, of Somerville, a vig- 
orous lady, over seventy years old. One morning she went out 
to the barn and found two little lambs, which had been born in 
the night. One was so weak and small that her father said it 
was of no use to try to raise it. Mary's tender heart pitied the 
tiny creature, and she begged her father to let her try to save it. 
He gave it to her care, promising that if it lived it should be her 
lamb. Mary took it into the house, wrapped it up, laid it in a 
warm place, and fed it carefully with milk. All day she watched 
it, and all night too. In the morning how glad she was to hear 
her father say that the lamb would live ! 

It was no wonder that the pet lamb loved its small mistress, 
and wanted to go everywhere with her. The day that it went to 
school and was turned out, it happened that a young man was 
there who saw the whole, and wrote out the story in the verses 
which the children know so well. The lamb lived and thrived, 
and had lambs of its own : it ran in the fields with the cattle, till 
one day a cow with sharp horns, while playing, tossed it into 
the air, and it fell bleeding at the feet of Mary, who happened to 
be in the field. With deep grief she watched its life go out. — 
From the lamb's wool a quantity of yarn had been spun, and 
Mrs. Tyler brought some of it to aunt Tabitha's bee, and sold it 
at twenty-five cents for each piece, so that Mary's little lamb 
earned sixty dollars towards paying for the Old South Church 
in Boston. This is the true story of Mary's little lamb. 



72 ENTERTAINING Personal 

Injustice Illustrated. 

One of the Moorish kings of Spain wished to build a pavilion 
on a field near his garden, and offered to purchase it of the wo- 
man to whom it belonged, but she would not consent to part 
with the inheritance of her fathers. The field, however, was 
seized, and the building erected. The poor woman complained 
to a cadi, who promised to do all in his power to serve her. One 
day, while the king was in the field, the cadi came with an emp- 
ty sack, and asked permission to fill it with the earth upon which 
he was treading. He obtained leave, and when the sack was 
filled, requested the king to complete his kindness by assisting 
him to load his ass with it. The monarch laughed, and tried to 
lift it, but soon let it fall, complaining of its enormous weight. 
"It is, however," said the cadi, "only a small part of the ground 
which thou hast wrested from one of thy subjeets; how then wilt 
thou bear the weight of the whole field, when thou shalt appear 
before the Great Judge laden with this iniquity?" The King 
thanked him for his reproof, and not only restored the field to 
its owner, but gave her the building which he had erected, and 
all the wealth it contained. 



Webster and Calhoun. 

Peter Harvey says : When Mr. Webster was about to deliver 
his 7th of March speech, (1850) he invited me to come on to 
Washington to hear it. He intended to make it a great effort, 
the crowning address of his later public life; and, as he knew 
beforehand that his actions and motives would be misconstrued, 
and that the speech would bring down upon him condemnation 
from many quarters, he was resolved that he would make use of 
all his powers to render it worthy of his really high motives and 
his fame. Early on the morning of the 7th, I was sitting with 
him in his house, when the sergeant-at-arms of the Senate came 
in. He told Mr. Webster that already not only the Senate- 



Personal ANECDOTES. 73 

chamber itself, but all the approaches to it, were crowded by 
an eager multitude. — A great speech from Mr. Webster was a 
national event. Mr. Webster looked at me, and, in a sad voice, 
spoke of this as being one of the last times he should ever address 
listening masses on the floor of the Senate, and of the rapidly- 
approaching close of his public life. Recovering his spirits again 
in a moment, he turned to the Sergeant-at-Arms and said : 

"However crowded the Senate-chamber is, I want you to be 
sure and save two good seats, — one for Mrs. Webster, and the 
other for my old friend Harvey .here, who has come all the way 
from Boston to hear my speech. " 

The Sergeant-at-Arms promised that he would do so. On going 
to the Senate-chamber at the proper time, I found an excellent 
seat reserved for me, near and a little in front of the spot where 
Mr. Webster would stand when he made -his speech. While he 
was speaking, an affecting incident occurred, which illustrated 
the warmth of feeling between Mr. Calhoun and himself. It ap- 
peared that, several days before, Mr. Webster had paid a visit to 
Mr. Calhoun in his sick-room at the Old Capitol Building. The 
venerable South Carolina Senator was very ill, and it was 
thought that he would never be able to appear in his seat again. 
The conversation turning upon the speech that Mr. Webster 
was about to make, the sick statesman expressed an earnest 
wish to hear it. 

Mr. Webster replied that he hoped he would be able to get to 
the Senate, as he himself was anxious that Mr. Calhoun should 
be present. Mr. Calhoun shook his head sadly, and said that 
he feared he was on his death-bed ; and Mr. Webster parted 
from him fully impressed with the belief that the venerable in- 
valid must soon pass away. 

Mr. Webster had not been speaking long on this occasion, 
when I saw a tall, gaunt figure, wrapped in a long black cloak, 
with deep, cavernous black eyes, and a thick mass of snow-white 
hair brushed back from the large brow and falling to the should- 
ers, advance with slow and feeble steps through the lobby be- 
hind the Vice-President's chair, and then, aided by one of the 



74 ENTERTAINING Personal 

Senators, approach and sink into a chair on the opposite side of 
the chamber. I looked at Mr. Webster, and observed that as 
he spoke his face was turned the other way, so that he had not 
seen the almost ghostly figure come in. He went on speaking 
in his deep and sonorous tones; and at last came to a passage 
wherein he alluded to something Mr. Calhoun had once said in 
debate, "as the utterance of the distinguished and venerable 
Senator from South Carolina, who, I deeply regret, is prevented 
by serious illness from being in his seat to-day. At this I 
glanced forward to the tall, gaunt figure across the chamber. He 
was moving restlessly in his chair; his head and body were bent 
eagerly forward, and he made an effort as if trying to rise and 
interrupt the orator. But the effort seemed to be too much 
for him, for he sank back in his chair, evidently exhausted. The 
noble current of Websterian eloquence flowed majestically on, 
all unconscious of the intended interruption. Presently the 
speaker once more had occasion to refer to some statement of 
Mr. Calhoun; and again he alluded to him as the "eminent Sen- 
ator from South Carolina, whom we all regret so much to miss, 
from such a cause, from his seat to-day." 

The figure grew restless; the hands nervously grasped both 
arms of his chair; the black eyes glared and shone in their ea- 
gerness; and now, half-rising from his seat, and unable any 
longer to bear the thought that Mr. Webster should remain un- 
conscious of his presence, he exclaimed, in a feeble and hollow 
voice, which yet was heard throughout the chamber : 

"The Senator from South Carolina is in his seat!" 

Mr. Webster turned towards him with something like a start, 
and when he saw that his friend had actually risen from the bed 
of death, and had indeed dared death itself to creep to the Cap- 
itol and hear his speech, he for a moment betrayed visible signs 
of deep emotion. Then, acknowledging this touching compli- 
ment by a low bow and a smile of profound satisfaction, he 
went on with his speech. 

A few days more, and Calhoun lay dead, in state, within those 
very walls. 



Personal ANECDOTES. 75 

How Barnum Became a Teetotaler. 

Mr. P. T. Barnum told a reporter of a Buffalo paper in these 
words, how he came to be a teetotaler: "One evening, in 1847, 
I went to Saratoga with a party of friends, and, without noticing 
what I was coming to, suddenly found myself talking thick. — 

I knew that I was boozy. The next morning I said I never 
should drink another drop of liquor, and I never have. I did 
not, at the time stop drinking champagne; I did not then con- 
sider that drinking. I became from that day very much inter- 
ested in the cause of temperance, and was instrumental in 
getting the Rev. Dr. E. H. Chapin to lecture on the subject at 
Bridgeport. To my surprise, the chief target of his eloquence 
was moderate drinkers and champagne-suppers. It changed my 
views considerably, and the next morning I took Dr. Chapin 
into my wine-cellar, and told him to look at the effect of his ar- 
guments. I had knocked the heads off all my champagne bottles. 
He was astonished, and said he thought I was a teetotaler. 

I I am,' replied. " 



Facetious Letter from Horace Greely. 

This letter was written by Mr. Greely to the President of a 
Horse Fair, in Northern Ohio, in response to an urgent invita- 
tion from that gentleman to be present at the great show : The 
idea that he should be called upon to address a few country 
sporting-men at a rural horse-race could only strike him as a 
fit subject for a joke, which he immediately proceeded to crack : 
New York, March 5, 1864. — Dear Sir: — Your note to 
hand. I am sorry to reply that my engagements are such that I 
shall not be able to comply with your request to address your 
Horse Fair next summer. I am a very busy man. I would 
refer you to Abe Lincoln, — a man who, I think, would draw 
well, and who has plenty of time to attend to such matters. — 
Yours, truly, Horace Greely. 



76 ENTERTAINING Personal 

Governor Stewart's Gratitude. 

When Doniphan's expedition was organized to go through New 
Mexico and co-operate with the main United States Army in 
1847, Robert M. Stewart was a member of a company raised 
in Buchanan County. Four days out his gun was accidentally 
discharged, the contents entering one of his legs, shattering a 
bone and disabling him. One of the Company, William Grover, 
was detailed to remain with Stewart. Grover watched over his 
friend with the care of a brother, and Stewart, not then dream- 
ing of his future distinction, said, "Bill, old fellow, I'll pay you 
back some day. The time will come. " 

Ten years later, Bill Grover, the friend of Stewart, was arres- 
ted as a participant in a political crime, tried, convicted, and 
sentenced to the Penitentiary for ten years. Not long after his 
conviction, Stewart was nominated for Governor. He saw his 
friend just before he was incarcerated, and said, "Bill, the first 
thing I do after I am inaugurated will be to pardon you out. — 
And I'm sure to be elected." 

"Bob was elected and inaugurated. True to his word and the 
native instincts of gratitude, he went to the Penitentiary and in- 
quired for Bill Grover. He was not there. He was one of a 
detail called out to dig a well in Jefferson City, and was then 
engaged in that work. 

Off the Governor posted to the well in which Grover was at 
work. On reaching the place, he leaned over the well and 
cried out: 

"Bill, are you there?" 

"Who's that?" asked a voice from the subterranean depths 
below. 

"It's me, Bob Stewart! Come out o' there, confound you! — 
I've pardoned you." 

In a few minutes Grover was hauled up out of the well. — 
Then was exhibited the curious spectacle of the Governor of a 
great state walking through the streets of the Capital, arm-in- 
arm with a striped-suit convict. He took his old friend up to 



Personal. ANECDOTES. 77 

a clothing store, rigged him out in a new suit, and made him a 
guest at the Governor's mansion, afterward providing for him 
a start in business. 



General Lee and the Newspapers. 

"We made a great mistake, " said Gen. Lee to Mr. Hill, "in 
the beginning of our struggle, and I fear, in spite of all we can 
do, it will prove to be a fatal mistake. " 

"What mistake is that, General." 

"Why, sir, in the beginning we appointed all our worst gen- 
erals to command the armies, and all our best generals to edit 
newspapers. As you know I have planned some campaigns, 
and quite a number of battles. I have given the work all the 
care and thought I could, and sometimes, when my plans were 
completed, as far as I could see, they seemed to be perfect. — 
But when I have fought them through, I have discovered defects 
in advance. When it was all over, I found, by reading a news- 
paper, that these best editor-generals saw all the defects plainly 
from the start. Unfortunately, they did not communicate their 
knowledge to me until it was too late. " Then, after a pause, 
he added: "I have no ambition but to serve the Confederacy; 
I do all I can to win our independence. I am willing to serve in 
any capacity to which the authorities may assign me. I have 
done the best I could in the field, but I am willing to yield my 
place to these best generals, and I will do my best for the cause 
editing a newspaper. " 



A Bottle of Whiskey that Went Through the 

Mexican War 

In the spring of 1861, while on an inspection tour to Norfolk, 
a friend there insisted that Gen. R. E. Lee should take two 
bottles of very fine old "London Dock" brandy, remarking that 
he would be certain to need it, and would find it very dificult to 
obtain so good an article. Gen. declined the offer, saying that 



78 ENTERTAINING Personal 

he was sure he would not need it. "As a proof that I will not," 
he said, "I may tell you that just as I was starting to the Mex- 
ican war, a lady in Virginia prevailed on me to take a bottle 
of fine old whiskey, which she thought I could not get on 
without. I carried that bottle all through the war without 
having had the slightest occasion to use it, and on my return 
home I sent it back to my good friend, that she might be con- 
vinced that I could get on without liquor." Upon another 
occasion Gen. Lee proposed to "treat" some of his officers, 
remarking, "I have just received a demijohn which I know is of 
the best.''' The demijohn, tightly covered, was produced, drink- 
ing vessels were brought out, and all gathered around in eager 
expectancy, when the general filled the glass and cups to the 
brim — not with old "Cognac," or "Bourbon," — but with fresh 
buttermilk^ which a kind lady, knowing his taste had sent him. 



Boyish Trick. 



While Webster and his brother were living at home, they 
on one occasion made a journey to the upper part of Vermont 
to visit their Uncle Benjamin. On the way they overtook a 
teamster with a heavy load, whose horses had stopped and refused 
to go further when the team was half way up a steep hill. The 
horses and wagon were so situated across the road that it was 
impossible for the brothers to pass in their chaise. After some 
time spent by the teamster in trying to start his horses, he left 
them and went in search of help. Daniel said to Ezekiel — 
"Come, we can start this team. You put your shoulder to the 
hind wheel, and I will mount the near horse. " 

This was no sooner said than done. Ezekiel put his sturdy 
shoulder to the wheel; Daniel mounted the horse, whipped and 
shouted at him. The horses pulled together, and away they 
went; and the load was soon drawn to the top of the hill. — 
When the man returned he found the horses quietly resting by 
the roadside at the summit, and the Websters out of sight. 



Personal ANECDOTES. 79 

Moody Getting out of a Tight Place. 

Mr. Moody's biographer, W. H. Daniels. D. D., tells the fol- 
lowing interesting story concerning the early life of the great 
Evangelist: "Once when he was creeping under a heavy fence, 
it fell down upon him and caught him, so that he could not get 
away. He struggled till he was quite exhausted, and then began 
to cry for help; but he was far from any house, and no one 
heard him. At last he got safely out ; and this was the account he 
gave of the escape : 

"I tried and tried, and I couldn't lift them awful heavy rails: 
Then I hollered for help, but nobody came ; and then I began 
to think I should have to die away up there on the mountain all 
alone. But I happened to think that^, maybe, God would help 
me, and so I asked Him. And after that I could lift up the rails, 
just as easy!" 



Gen. Stark and "His Molly." 

A gentleman from Manchester, N. H., gives us the true ac- 
count of Gen. Stark on that memorable occasion when he 
used the expression so often quoted, "You seethe red coats! 
They are ours! or Molly Stark sleeps a widow to-night." The 
The true story is as follows : 

As midday approached, the Americans were massed to 
receive orders, the locality being a large field, the entrance to 
which was by sliding bars and tall posts peculiar to the vicinity. 
Si ark leaped to the the topmost rail, steadied himself by the 
tall post, and harrangued his troops. * * "Now, my 

men, yonder are the hessians; they were bought for J~j 10 
pence a man. Are you worth more? Prove it. To-night the 
American flag floats over yonder hill, or Molly Stark sleeps a 
widow." Although the fact of his jumping on a rail fence, 
rather than delivering the speech from his horse's back, seems 
less General-like to the Martial reader, yet it was like the man, 
and the story as told here came from one who heard it from the 
lips of a survivor of the battle. 



80 ENTERTAINING Personal 

Mr?. Lieut. Helm's Story of the Fort Dearborn 
(Chicago) Massacre. 

"Mrs. Helm, in giving an account of the battle, or massacre, 
at Fort Dearborn, says: the horses pranced and bounded, and 
could hardly be restrained, as the balls whistled around them. — 
She drew off to one side and gazed upon Lieut. Helm, her hus- 
band, who was yet unharmed. She says: "I felt that my hour 
was come and endeavored to forget those I loved, and prepare 
myself for my approaching fate. While I was thus engaged, 
the surgeon. Dr. V. came up; he was badly wounded. His 
horse had been shot under him, and he had received a ball in 
his leg. Every muscle of his countenance was quivering with 
the agony of terror. Hfe said to me, " Do you think they will 
take our lives? I am badly wounded, but I think not mortally. 
Perhaps we might purchase our lives by promising them a large 
reward. Do you think there is any chance?" 

" ' Dr. V.,' said I, 'do not let us waste the few moments that 
yet remain to us in such vain hopes. Our fate is inevitable. 
In a few moments we must appear before the bar of God. Let 
us endeavor to make what preparation is yet in our power.' — 
'Oh! I cannot die!" exclaimed he! ' I am not fit to die — if I 
had but a short time to prepare — death is awful!' I pointed 
to ensign Ronan, who, though mortally wounded, and nearly 
down, was still fighting with desperation upon one knee. 

" ' Look at that man,' said I, 'at least he dies like a soldier!' 

" ' Yes,' replied the unfortunate man, with a convulsive gasp, 
'but he has no terrors of the future — he is an unbeliever!" 

"At this momont a young Indian raised his tomahawk at 
me. By springing aside I avoided the blow which was aimed 
at my skull, but which alighted on my shoulder. I seized him 
around the neck, and while exerting my utmost efforts to get 
possession of his scalping knife, which hung in a scabbard over 
his breast, I was dragged from his grasp by another and older 
Indian. 

"The latter bore me, struggling and resisting, towards the 




Fort Dearborn, Chicago. 



Personal. ANECDOTES. 81 

lake. Notwithstanding the rapidity with which I was hurried 
along, I recognized, as I passed them, the lifeless remains of 
the unfortunate surgeon. Some murderous tomahawk had 
stretched him upon the very spot where I had last seen him. 

"I was immediately plunged into the water and held there 
with a forcible hand, notwithstanding my resistance. I soon 
perceived, however, that the object of my captor was not to 
drown me, as he held me firmly in such a position as to place 
my head above the water. This reassured me, and regarding 
him attentively, I soon recognized, in spite of the paint with 
which he was disguised, The Black Partridge. 

"When the firing had somewhat subsided, my preserver bore 
me from the water and conducted me up the sand-banks. It 
was a burning August morning, and walking through the 
sand in my drenched condition, was inexpressibly painful and 
fatiguing. I stopped and took off my shoes to free them from 
the sand, with which they were nearly filled, when a squaw 
seized and carried them off, and I was obliged to proceed 
without them. When we had gained the prairie, I was met 
by my father, who told me that my husband was safe, and but 
slightly wounded. They led me gently back toward the Chica- 
go river, along the southern bank of which was the Pottawota- 
mie encampment. At one time I was placed upon a horse 
without a saddle, but soon finding the motion insupportable, 
I sprang off. Supported partly by my kind conductor, and 
partly by another Indian, Pee-sol-om, who held dangling in 
his hand the scalp of Capt. Wells, I dragged my fainting steps 
to one of the wigwams. 

"The wife of Wau-bee nee-mah, a chief from the Illinois 
river, was standing near, and seeing my exhausted condition, 
she seized a kettle, dipped up some water from a little stream 
that flowed near, threw into it some maple sugar, and stirring 
it up with her hand, gave it to me to drink. This act of kind- 
ness, in the midst of so many atrocities, touched me most 
sensibly, but my attention was soon diverted to another object. 
The fort had become a scene of plunder to such as remained 
6 



82 ENTERTAINING Personal 

after the troops marched out. The cattle had been shot down 
as they ran at large and lay dead or dying around. 

"As the noise of the firing grew gradually less, and the 
stragglers from the victorious party dropped in, I received 
confirmation of what my father had hurriedly communicated 
in our renconter on the lake shore; namely, that the whites 
had surrendered after the loss of about two-thirds their num- 
ber. They had stipulated for the preservation of their lives, 
and those of the remaining women and children, and for their 
delivery at some of the British posts, unless ransomed by 
traders in the Indian country. It appears that the wounded 
prisoners were not considered as included in the stipulation, 
and a horrible scene occurred on their being brought into 
Camp. 

"An old squaw, infuriated by the loss of friends, or excited 
by the sanguinary scenes around her, seemed possessed by a 
demoniac ferocity. She seized a stable fork and assaulted one 
miserable victim who lay groaning and writhing in the agony 
of his wounds, aggravated by the scorching beams of the sun. 
With a delicacy of feeling scarcely to have been expeeted 
under such circumstances, Wau-bee-nee-mah stretched a mat 
across two poles between me and this dreadful scene. I was 
thus spared, in some degree, a view of its horrors, although I 
could not entirely close my ears to the cries of the sufferer. 

The following night five more of the prisoners were toma- 
hawked. " 

But why dwell upon this painful subject? Why describe 
the butchery of the children, twelve of whom, placed together 
on one baggage- wagon, fell beneath the merciless tomahawk 
of one young savage? This atrocious act was committed after 
the whites, twenty-seven in number, had surrendered. When 
Capt. Wells beheld it he exclaimed; "Is that their game? Then 
I will kill too!" So saying, he turned his horse's head and 
started for the Indian camp near the Fort, where had been left 
their squaws and children. 

Several Indians pursued him, firing at him as he galloped 



Personal ANECDOTES. 83 

along. He laid himself flat on the neck of his horse, loading 
and firing in that position; at lengrh the balls of his pursuers 
took effect, killing his horse and severely wounding himself. — 
At this moment he »was met by Winnemeg and Wau-ban-see, 
who endeavored to save him from the savages who had now 
overtaken him; but as they supported him along, after having 
disen^asjed him from his horse, he received his death-blow 
from one of the party, {Pee-sol-om^) who stabbed him in the 
back. ********* 

Lieut. Helm was wounded in the action and taken prisoner; 
and afterwards taken by some friendly Indians to the Au Sable, 
and from thence to St. Louis, and liberated from captivity 
through the agency of Thomas Forsyth. Mrs. Helm received 
a slight wound in the ankle; had her horse shot from under her; 
and, after passing through the agonizing scenes described, went 
with the family of Mr. Kinzie to Detroit. 



How Spurgeon Got a Hat. 

About five thousand butchers and their female relatives were 
present at an entertainment given to them by the butchers' 
trade committee in London, recently, in the Metropolitan tab- 
ernacle, Newington. The Rev. C. H. Spurgeon addressed the 
assembly, and in the course of a characteristic speech said that 
when he was a very youg man of sixteen, he was minister of 
a chapel. Rather young to begin; yet he had a fine large 
house, His salary was ^45 a year, not "all found," but you 
found yourself. He had to find himself a good suit of black, go 
about like a gentleman with nothing in his pocket — yet he never 
wanted, for he was God's servant. The other day he was down 
in that village where he preached, and was told that the biggest 
"screw" who ever lived had recently died. This man came 
down from up stairs to die, in order that no one should earn 
sixpence by removing him. He directed he should be buried 
in his own garden to save expense, and was never known to 
; give anything away in his life. He (Mr. Spurgeon) interrupted 



84 ENTERTAINING Personal 

his informant, and told him that this man on one occasion gave 
him money. He wanted a new hat to look decent in on Sun- 
days. In the country, if one did not wear a respectable hat his 
reputation was at stake; but he never wore a tall hat now, for 
his reputation was established — and he could wear any hat he 
liked. Well, upon this occasion he wanted to buy a respectable 
hat, and where the money was to come from he did not know. — 
One day this "screw" of a man squeezed into his hands three 
half-crowns, and accordinly the hat was bought. On the follow- 
ing Sunday this monster of covetousness said to him, "I am 
afraid of your being covetous, but the Lord told me to give you 
half-a-sovereign, and I stopped half-a-crown out of it. Pray take 
the other half-crown. I cannot sleep at night without you have 
it." He (Mr. Spurgeon) took the half-crown to ease the man's 
conscience, and God, who knew he wanted the hat, made that 
old gentleman "fork out that ten shillings." 



Incident of the Revolution. 

The history of Enfield, Conn., issued by the town Centennial 
Committee, brought a letter from Mayor J. J. R. Pease, of 
Janesville, Wis., who relates, in the words of his grandfather, 
the incident at the old First Church, New Haven, which followed 
the reception of the news of the fight at Lexington, at the begin- 
ning of the Revolution : 

"On the Sunday after that fight a message to Captain Thomas 
Abbe, giving an account of it, was brought to him while he was 
at Church. Captain Abbe was the best known 'man-of-war' in 
the town : he had seen service in the old French war, and withal 
was an accomplished player on the drum. He left the church 
very quietly, went to his house not far away, and forthwith re- 
turned as far as the steps or entrance to the church, and 
commenced playing on his drum, and played on till the people 
came out of church, leaving the parson alone. Captain Abbe 
then told the people of the fight at Lexington, made them a rou- 
sing 'war speech,' closing with the announcement that he should 



Personal ANECDOTES. 85 

march to Boston the next day, and invited all who had a mind 
to march with him to fall into line as he stepped off. He then 
began to play upon the drum and march around the church until 
one hundred and forty-seven men had volunteered to go with 
him. 



How Dan Hung his Scythe. 

During one of the college vacations, Webster and his brother 
returned to their father's, in Salsbury. Thinking he had a right 
to some return for the money he had expended on their educa- 
tion, the father put schythes into their hands, and ordered them 
to mow. Daniel made a few sweeps, and then resting on his 
scythe, wiped the sweat from his brow. His father said, "What's 
the matter, Dan?" "My scythe don't hang right, sir," he 
answered. His father fixed it, and Dan went to work again, 
but with no better success. Something was the matter with the 
scythe, and it was not long before it wanted fixing again, and 
the father said in a pet: "Well, hang it to suit yourself." Daniel 
with great composure, hung it in the next tree, and retired. 



Narrow Escape of General Washington. 

Major Ferguson, who commanded a rifle corps in advance 
of the hussars under Kniphausen, during some skirmishing a day 
or two previous to the battle of Brandy wine, was the hero of a 
very singular incident, which he thus relates in a letter to a 
friend. It illustrates, in a most forcible manner, the overruling 
hand of Providence in directing the operations of a man's mind, 
in moments when he is least of all aware of it. 

"We had not lain long, when a rebel officer, remarkable by a 
hussar dress, pressed towards our army, within a hundred yards 
of my right flank, but not perceiving us. He was followed by 
another, dressed in dark green and blue, mounted on a bay 
horse, with a remarkably high cocked hat. I ordered three good 
shots to steal near to them; but the idea disgusting me, I recalled 



86 ENTERTAINING Personal 

the order. The hussar, in returning, made a circuit, but the 
other passed within a hundred yards of us, upon which I ad- 
vanced from the wood towards him. Upon my calling, he stop- 
ped; but after looking at me, he proceeded. I again drew his 
attention, and made signs to him to stop, leveling my piece at 
him; but he slowly cantered away. As I was within that dis- 
tance at which, in the quickest firing, I could have lodged half a 
dozen balls in or about him, before he was out of my reach, I 
had only to determine; but it was not pleasant to fire at the back 
of an unoffending individual, who was acquitting himself very 
coolly of his duty; so I let him alone. 

"The day after, I had been telling this story to some wounded 
officers who lay in the same room with me, when one of the sur- 
geons, who had been dressing the wounded rebel officers, came 
in, and told us, that they had been informing him that General 
Washington was all the morning with the light troops, and only 
attended by a French officer in a huzzar dress, he himself dressed 
and mounted in every point as above described. I am not sor- 
ry that I did not know at the time who it was. " 



Moody and Reynolds. 

The first meeting that I ever saw Mr. Moody at, says Mr. Reyn- 
nolds, was in an old shanty abandoned by a saloon keeper. Mr. 
Moody had got the place to hold a meeting in at night. I went 
there a little late; and the first thing I saw was a man standing 
up, with a few tallow candles around him, holding a negro boy, 
and trying to read to him the story of the Prodigal Son; and a 
great many of the words he could not make out and had to skip. 
I thought if the Lord can ever use such an instrument as that 
for His honor and glory, it will astonish me. After that meeting 
was over Mr. Moody said to me, Reynolds, I have got only one 
talent: I have no education, but love the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and I want to do something for him; and I want you to pray 
for me. I have never ceased from that day to this, morning and 
evening, to pray for that devoted christian soldier. 



Personal. ANECDOTES. 87 

I have watched him since then, have had counsel with him, 
and I know him thoroughly; and for consistent walk and conver- 
sation, I have never met a man to equal him. He astounds me 
when I look back and see what Mr. Moody was thirteen years 
ago, and then what he is under God to-day, shaking Scot- 
land to its very centre, and reaching now over into Ireland. — 
The last time I heard him, his injunction was, "pray for me eve- 
ry day; pray now that God will keep me humble !" 



How Young Ulysses Loaded the Wagon. 

General Grant's biographer tells the following anecdote about 
young Ulysses, who at the time, was only twelve years old! — 
"One cloudy April morning" when rain was threatened, Ulysses 
went as usual for his load. After a long trip, he came back with 
his logs, and as Jesse — his father — and the hired man were un- 
loading them, he remarked : "Father, it's hardly worth while for 
me to go again to-day; none of the hewers are in the woods. — 
There is only one load left; if I get that now there will be none 
for me to haul in the morning. " 

"Where are the hewers?" 

"At home, I suppose." They haven't been in the woods this 
morning. " 

"Who loaded these logs?" 

"Dave and me." 

"What do you mean by telling me such & story?" asked the 
clearheaded, indignant father." 

"It is the truth; I loaded the logs with no Jielp but Dave's." 

It was the truth. For this hauling, the body of the wagon 
had been removed, and the logs were carried upon the axles. — 
It was a hard job for several men to load. They would take 
the wheels off on one side, let the axles down to the ground, 
lift on the squared logs with handspikes, then pry the axles up 
with levers, and put the wheels on again. That a mere boy 
could do this alone was incredible, and Jesse inquired : — 



88 ENTERTAINING Personal. 

"How in the world did you load the wagon?" 

"Well, father, you know that sugar-tree we saw yesterday, 
which is half fallen, and lies slanting, with the top caught in 
another tree. I hitched Dave to the logs and drew them up on 
that; then backed the wagon up to it, and hitched Dave to them 
again, and one at a time, snaked them forward upon the 
axles. " 

The ingenious lad had used the trunk of the fallen tree as an 
inclined plane, and after hauling the logs upon it, so that they 
nearly balanced, had drawn them endwise upon his wagon un- 
derneath with little difficulty. The feat made him quite celebra- 
ted in the neighborhood. 



Colonel H£>rry, 



A ludicrous story is told of Colonel Horry, who was once or- 
dered to await the approach of a British detachment in ambus- 
cade; a service he performed with such skill, that he had them 
completely within his power, when from a dreadful impediment in 
his speech, by which he was afflicted, he could not articulate the 
word "fire." In vain he made the attempt — it was fi, fi, fi, fi — 
but he could get no further. At length, irritated to almost 
madness, he exclaimed, "Shoot — blast you — shoot — you know 

very well what I would say ! — Shoot — sho-ot and be 

bl — asted to you. " 

At Quimby, Col. Baxter, a gallant soldier, possessed of great 
coolness, and still greater simplicity of character, calling out : — 
"I am a wounded man, Col. Horry." Horry replied; 
"Think no more of it, Baxter, but stand to your post." 
"But I can't stand, Colonel. I am wounded a second time." 
"Then lie down, Baxter, but quit not your post." 
"Colonel," cried the wounded man, "they have shot me again, 
and if I remain any longer here, I shall be shot to pieces. " — 
"Beit so, Baxter, but stir not." He obeyed the order and 
actually received the fourth wound before the engagement 
ended. 



Personal ANECDOTES. So 

Napoleon and Dugazon. 

Dugazon was the scenic artist of the principal theatre in Paris. 
On hearing that Napoleon was interested in such a work as his. 
he conceived the bold idea of gaining a private audience and 
getting the Emperor's opinion of some scenic effects he was cog- 
itating. The Emperor was fond of strolling about alone in the 
park at Malmaison. At such times no one dared to disturb his 
reveries. Dugazon dressed himself as a simple cure or village 
priest, got into the park on the strength of his garb and threw 
himself in the way of the Emperor, who saluted him in deference 
to his faith, and opened a conversation. 

The scenic artist repeated his visit frequently, and branching 
off from religious topics, gradually interested Napoleon in secu- 
lar ones, and as extremes meet, from holy church he went to the 
play-house. At length he unfolded who he was. So far from 
being offended, the great General made it a point of invariably 
giving audience to the scenic artist, and suggested the working 
of what is now called the "transformation scene," The inter- 
views were never broken in upon, for the reason that Dugazon 
always wore the garb of a priest, and the Emperor was supposed 
to be engaged in his religious devotions, instead of plotting and 
planning the effects of gold and silver foil, or revolving coryphees 
and opening birds and flowers. 

Napoleon was partial also to private theatricals, and the Bona- 
parte family used to cast pieces, sharing the parts between them. 
It was not in accord with the dignity of an Emperor to act, but 
he would be present at the entertainments. 

Lucien, his brother, was playing one evening in the palace at 
Neuilly, the role of Zamore, in "Alzire. " Napoleon strongly 
reprimanded him for appearing in costume not historically cor- 
rect Napoleon said in a severe tone to Lucien: "When I am 
striving to build up a taste for good manners and decency, the 
members of my family, at least, should throw no obstacle in the 
way of my projects." 



90 ENTERTAINING Personal 

Rosa Bonheur and the Journalist. 

"Rosa Bonheur's workshop is far away from the breweries of 
Mont Breda, or the chestnuts of the Luxembourg. You must 
take the Lyons line; get out at Fontainebleau, and ask the first 
individual you meet, the road to Chateau Bay. After an hour's 
walk, in a thick wood, you perceive at an opening of the Thour- 
mey woods an airy-looking building, in which the architect has 
combined iron, brick, and wood with rare artistic taste. From 
the cellar to the roof everything is graceful and coquettish in 
this miniature castle. Its irregularity is its greatest charm, and 
your eyes could feast all day on the turrets hung with ivy and 
the balconies entwined with honey-suckle, if your ears did not 
ring with a peculiar harmony which detracts from your admira- 
tion. You imagine that in the barn near by an Orpheus 
transformed into an animal is chanting forth a chorus of Richard 
Wagner; but, after listening attentively, this strange concert is 
found to proceed from the bleating of sheep, the lowing of cows, 
the neighing of horses, and the yelping of dogs. 

"The servant pointed out to me a funny-looking little man, 
coming towards me knitting his eyebrows. He had on an enor- 
mous straw hat. Looking under it, I perceived a soft, beardless 
face, browned by the sun and lighted up by two moderate-sized 
chestnut-colored eyes. The small nose rather exaggerated the 
size of the large mouth, showing two rows of superb teeth. 
Long hair flowed from under her large peasant hat in great neg- 
ligence. 

"' Who are you?' 'Where do you come from?' and 'What do 
you want ? said she to me sharply. She stopped in front of me. 
and thrust her hands in the pockets of a pair of gray-ribbed vel- 
vet pants. I had been struck with the minuteness of those 
hands, and looked at her feet, which were equally microscopic, 
in spite of their thick covering of calf-skin undressed, with 
pegged soles. 

"This Caesar-like apostrophe disconcerted me a little, but re- 
covering my coolness, I answered, 'I am a journalist, and I wish 
to see Miss Bonheur/' 



Personal. ANECDOTES. 9 t 

"'Well, look ^,t her,' said the little peasant, taking off his 
head-gear. 

"She contined in a milder tone, 'You must excuse me; you 
understand that I am obliged to keep intruders away. If talent 
makes a wild beast of a person, it is scarcely worth desiring. 
You know, also, the loss of time occasioned by the visits of stran- 
gers; the weariness caused by their questions. Come now with 
me; I am going to show you my sheep: If it tires you I can't 
help it; hurry, because I left one half shorn, and if the fleece is 
not taken off at once the poor beast burns on one side and 
freezes on the other. I was born to be a farmer, but fate deci- 
ded otherwise. I am a painter, and out of my element.' " 



Jenny Lind's Hat Full of Pearls. 

Jenny Lind reached London in April, 1847, an( l soon began 
her rehearsals at the Queen's Theatre. When her voice was first 
heard in that spacious edifice at a rehearsal, no one was so 
enchanted as Lablasche, the celebrated basso. 

"Every note," he exclaimed, "is like a pearl." 

She was pleased with the simile, and when they had become 
better acquainted, she reminded him of it in a very agreeable 
manner. She came up to him one morning at rehearsal, and said 
to him : — 

"Will you do me the favor, Signor Lablasche, to lend me your 
hat?" 

Much surprised, he nevertheless handed her his hat, which she 
took with a deep courtesy, and, tripping away with it to the 
back part of tbe stage, began to sing an air into it. She then 
brought back the hat to Lablasche, and, ordering that portly 
personage to kneel, she returned it to him with the remark : — 

"I have made you a rich man, signor, for I have given you a 
hat full of pearls!" 

Everything a favorite does seems graceful and pleasant. This 
trifling act delighted the whole company. 



92 ENTERTAINING Personal. 

Dr. Franklin Turning the Grindstone. 

"When I was a little boy, I remember one cold winter's morn- 
ing," says Dr. Franklin, "I was accosted by a smiling man, with 
an axe on his shoulder. 

"My pretty boy," said he, "has your father a grindstone?" 

"Yes, sir," said I. 

"You are a fine little fellow," said he, "will you let me grind 
my axe on it?" 

Pleased with his compliment of "fine little fellow," "O yes, 
sir," I answered, "it is down in the shop." 

"And you will, my man," said he, patting me on the head, 
"get a little hot water?" 

How could I refuse? I ran and soon brought a kettle full. 

"How old are you, and what's your name," continued he, 
without waiting for a reply; "I am sure you are one of the finest 
fellows that ever I have seen; will you just turn a few minutes 
for me?" 

Tickled with the flattery, like a fool I went to work, and 
bitterly did I rue the day. It was a new axe, and I toiled and 
tugged till I was almost tired to death. The school-bell 
rang, and I could not get away; my hands were blistered, 
and it was not half ground. At length, however, the axe was 
sharpened, and the man turned to me with, 

"Now, you little rascal, you've played the truant; scud to 
school, or you'll rue it. " 

Alas! thought I, it was hard enough to turn a grindstone this 
cold day, but now to be called a little rascal was too much. It 
sank deep in my mind, and often have I thought of it since. — 
When I see a merchant over- polite to his customers — begging 
them to take a little brandy, and throwing his goods on the coun- 
ter — thinks I, that man has an axe to grind. When I see a 
man flattering the people, making great professions of attach- 
ment to liberty, who is in private life a tyrant, methinks, look 
out, good people, that fellow would set you turning grindstones. 
When I see a man hoisted into office by party spirit, without a 



Personal. ANECDOTES. 93 

single qualification to render him either respectable or useful, 
alas! methinks, deluded people, you are doomed for a season to 
turn the grindstone for a booby. 



Fanny Fern's Story of Gail Hamilton's Three 

Kittens, Etc. 

In her life of Mary Abigail Dodge, Mrs. Parton tells the fol- 
lowing story of young Gail's surroundings : 

"Tittle Mary had other companions less aggressive in the 
birds, bees, and grasshoppers. She went Maying, too, on May 
mornings, as every true-born New England child should, as 
I myself have done, whether the sky wore blue or black; 
whether she shivered or was warm in a white gown ; whether the 
May flowers were in blossom for May-wreaths, or the snow- 
flakes were coming down instead. She had chickens, too, and 
when they first came, she fed them with soaked and sweetened 
cracker; later, she made fricassees of them, and omelets of their 
eggs. She had three cats; one, named Molly after herself; — 
another, a hideous, saffron-colored, forlorn, little wretch, that was 
abandoned by an Irish family, and which she felicitously bap- 
tized Rory O'More. This cat one day crept into the oven. — 
Mary, ignorant of the fact, shut the door, wishing to retain the 
heat. Hearing a stifled "mew," she opened it, and out flew the 
cat and plunged through the house outside into the nearest 
snow-bank, from whence she emerged, with true Irish elasticity, 
right-end up, and as good as new. The third cat little Mary 
housed was a perfect savage ; her mistress never being able to 
catch sight of her save in her fierce and lightning-like transits 
through the house. These cats fought each other, scratched, 
and made the fur fly, stole chickens, and gave that zest and ex- 
citement to her childish days which might well astonish our city- 
prisoned urchins — shut up with a cross French nurse, to keep 
their silk dresses clean, in a nursery, from whose windows the 
only view is a dead brick wall. 



94 ENTERTAINING Personal 

Florence Nightingale. 

One of the wounded soldiers to whom this angel of mercy, 
Miss Florence Nightingale, ministered, in speaking of her won- 
derful influence in the wards, says: "She would speak to one 
and to another, and nod and smile to many more; but she 
couldn't do it to all, you know; we lay there by hundreds; but 
we could kiss her shadow as it fell, and lay our heads on the 
pillow again content. " 



Grace Greenwood's Story of Queen Victoria's 
Discipline. 

The following anecdote of Queen Victoria's strict discipline 
was told to the relator — Grace Greenwood — by one who 
witnessed the occurrence : 

"One day, when the Queen was present in her carriage, at 
a military review, the princess royal, then rather a wilful girl 
of about thirteen, sitting on the front seat, seemed disposed to 
be rather familiar and coquettish with some young officers 
of the escort. Her Majesty gave several reproving looks, 
without avail; 'winked at her, but she wouldn't stay winked' — 
At length, in flirting her handkerchief over the side of the car- 
riage, she dropped it, — too evidently not accidentally. In- 
stantly two or three young heroes sprang from their saddles 
to return it to her fair hand; but the awful voice of royalty 
stayed them. 

"'Stop, gentlemen!' exclaimed the queen; 'leave it just 
where it lies. Now, my daughter, get down from the carriage 
and pick up your handkerchief.' 

"There was no help for it. The royal footman let down the 
steps for the little, royal lady, who proceeded to lift from the 
dust the pretty piece of cambric and lace. She blushed a good 
deal, though she tossed her head saucily, and she was doubtless 
angry enough. But the mortifying lesson may have nipped in 
the bud her first impulse towards coquetry. 



Personal. ANECDOTES. 95 

Bishop Hutton's Gratitude. 

While Dr. Hutton, Bishop of Durham, was once traveling 
between Wesleydale and Ingleton, he suddenly dismounted, 
delivered his horse to the care of one of his servants, and 
retired to a particular spot, at some distance from the highway, 
where he knelt down, and continued for some time in prayer. — 
On his return, one of his attendants took the liberty of inquiring 
his reason for this singular act; when the bishop informed him, 
that when he was a poor boy he traveled over that cold and 
bleak mountain without shoes or stockings, and that he re- 
membered disturbing a cow on the identical spot where he 
prayed, that he might warm his feet and legs on the place where 
she had lain. His feelings of gratitude would not allow him to 
pass the place without presenting his thanksgivings to God for 
the favors He had since shown him. 



Wesley and Nelson in Cornwall. 

These indefatigable missionaries rode from common to com- 
mon, in Cornwall, preaching to a people who heard willingly, but 
seldom, or never proffered them the slightest act of hospitality 
Returning one day in autumn from one of these hungry excur- 
sions, Wesley stopped his horse at some brambles to pick the 
fruit. "Brother Nelson," said he, "we ought to be thankful that 
there are plenty of blackberries, for this is the best country I 
ever saw for getting a stomach, but the worst that I ever saw for 
getting food. Do people think we can live by preaching?" — 
They were detained some time at St. Ives, because of the illness 
of one of their companions; and their lodging was little better 
than their fare. "All that time," says John, "Mr Wesley and I 
laid on the floor: he had my great-coat for his pillow, and I had 
Burkitt's Notes on the New Testament for mine. After being 
here near three weeks, one morning, about three o'clock, Mr. 
Wesley turned over, and finding me awake, clapped me on the 
side, saying, 'Brother Nelson, let us be of good cheer, I have 
one whole side yet; for the skin is off but on one side. 



96 ENTERTAINING Personal 

How a Half-Guinea made Dr. Clarke's 
Commentaries. 

During Dr. Adam Clarke's short stay at Kingswood, he often 
worked in the garden for exercise. "Observing one day," says 
he, "a small plat which had been awkwardly turned over by one 
of the boys, I took the spade and began to dress it : in breaking 
one of the clods, I knocked a half guinea out of it. I took it 
up and immediately said to myself, This is not mine; it belongs 
not to any of my family, for they have never been here ; I will 
take the first opportunity to give it to Mr. Simpson. Shortly 
after, I perceived him walking in the garden. I went to him, 
told him the circumstance, and presented the half-guinea to 
him; he took it, looked at it, and said, ' It may be mine, as sev- 
eral hundred pounds pass through my hands in the course of the 
year, for the expense of this school; but I do not recollect that 
I ever lost any money since I came here. Probably one of the 
gentlemen has; keep it, and in the mean time I will inquire.' — 
I said, "Sir, it is not mine, take you the money: if you meet the 
right owner, well; if not, throw it in the funds of the school.' 
He answered, ' You must keep it till I make the inquiry.' I took 
it again with reluctance. The next day he told me that Mr. 
Bayley had lost a half-guinea, and I might give it to him the first 
time I saw him; I did so: — three days afterwards Mr. Bayley 
came to me and said, ' Mr. C, it is true that I lost a half-guinea, 
but I am not sure that this is the half-guinea I lost ; unless I were 
so, I could not conscientiously keep it; therefore you must take 
it again.' I said it is not mine, probably it is yours; therefore I 
cannot take it. He answered, * I will not keep it; I have been 
uneasy in my mind ever since it came into my possession;' and in 
saying this, he forced the gold into my hand. Mr. Simpson was 
present: I then presented it to him, saying, 'Here, Mr. S., take 
you it, and apply it to the use of the school.' He turned away 
hastily as from something ominous, and said ' I declare I will 
have nothing to do with it.' So it was obliged to remain with 
its finder, and formed a grand addition to a purse that already 
possessed only three half-pence. 



Personal. ANECDOTES. 97 

"Was this providential? 1. I was poor, not worth two pence 
in the world, and needed some important articles. 2. I was out 
of the reach of all supplies, and could be helped only from 
heaven. 

"The story is before the reader; he may draw what inference 
he pleases. One thing, however, I may add : — besides two or 
three necessary articles which I purchased, I gave Mr. Bayley 
6s. as my subscription for his Hebrew Grammar : by which work 
I acquired a satisfactory knowledge of that language, which 
ultimately led me to read over the Hebrew Bible and make 
those short notes which formed the basis of the Commentary 
since published! Had I not got that Grammar I probably 
should never have turned my mind to Hebrew learning; and 
most certainly had never written a Commentary on Divine Rev- 
elation ! Behold how great matter a little fire kindleth! My 
pocket was not entirely empty of the remains of this half-guinea, 
till other supplies, in the ordinary course of God's providence, 
came in ! O God ! the silver and the gold are thine: so are the 
cattle upon a thousand hills." 



Ole Bull, Camille Urso, and Miss Topp. 

Ole Bull, Camille Urso, and Miss Alida Topp met once at 
a party. 

"You play beautifully, my child," said the Norwegian to Miss 
Topp, "but you can't do the great music. No woman can: it 
takes the biceps of a man. " 

My arm is strong enough, " answered the brilliant young pianist, 
laughing; I break my pianos as well as a man could, and Stein- 
way has to send me a new one every week." 

"You see," responded Ole Bull, turning to Madam Urso, 
"you see how these people treat their pianos. They bang them, 
they beat them, they kick them, they smash them to pieces; but 
our fiddles! how we love them!''' 

"On, yes, indeed," was Camille' s earnest answer, with a flash 
of her most expressive eyes. 
7 



9 8 ENTERTAINING Personal. 

Rev. John Brown--Haddington. 

The Rev. John Brown, of Haddington, when a boy, was en- 
gaged in the service of a farmer in East Lothian. Having one 
clay gone to Edinburgh market with grain, while his horses were 
resting and his companions asleep, he went to a bookseller's in 
Parliament Close, in search of a Greek Testament. The propri- 
etor, standing at his door, was surprised to hear a poor boy ask 
for such a book, and inquired what he would do with it? "Why, 
read it, if it please your honor." "Can you read it?" "Why," 
replied the lad, "I will try at it." One of the shop men, having 
found one, put it into his hand, and the master said, "If you 
can read it, you shall have it for nothing. " The boy took it, and 
having read a page, translated it with great ease. The booksel- 
ler would receive no money, though the boy, who had pulled 
out half a crown from a purse in his pocket, urged him to take 
it, knowing that to be the price of the book. About twenty 
years after this, a well-dressed man, with a wig and staff, came 
to the same shop. He addressed the book-seller, who, as former- 
ly, was walking before the door, saying, "Sir, I believe I am 
your debtor. " The book-seller said, "I do not know, but step 
in, and any of the young men will tell you." "But," replied he, 
"it is to you personally that I am indebted." Looking in his 
face, the other said, "Sir, I do not know that you owe me 
anything." "Yes, I certainly do. Do you recollect that, about 
about twenty years ago, a poor boy came and got a Greek 
Testament from you, and did not pay for i\?" "Yes, perfectly," 
replied the book-seller, "and have often thought of it; and the 
boy was no sooner gone, than I was angry with myself for not 
asking his name, and where he resided." "I," replied the cler- 
gyman, "was the boy; my name is Brown, and I live at 
Haddington." Upon looking again in his face, and giving him 
his hand, he said, "Mr. Brown, I am glad to see you, and have 
often heard of you. We have here in our shop your self-Inter- 
preting Bible, your Church History, &c, which have brought 
me in much money: will you be so obliging 'as to dine with me?" 



Personal. ANECDOTES. 99 

The invitation was accepted, and a lasting friendship formed 
between them. 



Luther on Pilate's Stair Case. 

For some time after the light of truth began to dawn on the 
mind of Luther, he submitted to all the vain practices which the 
Romish Church enjoins, in order to purchase the remission of 
sins. One day, during his visit to Rome, wishing to obtain an 
indulgence promised by the Pope to any one who should ascend, 
on his knees, what is called Pilate's Staircase, the poor Saxon 
monk was slowly climbing those steps, which they told him had 
been miraculously transported from Jerusalem to Rome. But 
while he was going through with the meritorious work, he 
thought he heard a voice, like thunder, speaking from the depth 
of his heart, " The just shall live by faith. " He started up 
in terror on the steps up which he had been crawling; he was 
horrified at himself; and struck with shame for the degradation 
to which superstition had debased him, he fled from the scene of 
his folly. This was the decisive epoch in the inward life of 
Luther. 



Whitfield and the Little Boy. 

When visiting America, the Rev. G. Whitfield often stood on 
the outsteps of the court-house in Philadelphia, and preached to 
thousands who crowded the streets below. On one of these 
occasions, a youth pressed as near to his favorite preacher as 
possible; and, to testify his respect, held a lantern for his accom- 
modation. Soon after the sermon began, he became so absorbed 
in the subject, that the lantern fell from his hand, and was 
dashed to pieces; and that part of the audience in the immedi- 
ate vicinity of the speaker's station were not a little discomposed 
by the occurrence. 

Some years after, Mr. Whitfield, in the course of his fifth visit 
to America, about the year 1754, on a journey from the south- 



ico ENTERTAINING Personal 

ward, called at St. George's, in Delaware, where Mr. Rodgers 
was then settled in the ministry, and spent some time with him. 
In the course of this visit, Mr. Rodgers, riding one day with his 
visitor in a close carriage, asked him whether he recollected the 
occurrence of the little boy who was so much affected with his 
preaching as to let the lantern fall. Mr. Whitfield answered, "O 
yes! I remember it well; and have often thought I would give 
anything in my power to know who that little boy was, and what 
had become of him." Mr. Rodgers replied, with a smile, "I am 
that little boy. " Mr. Whitfield, with tears of joy, started from 
his seat, clasped him in his arms, and with strong emotions 
remarked, that he was the fourteenth person then in the minis- 
try, whom he had discovered in the course of that visit to Amer- 
ica, of whose hopeful conversion he had been the instrument. 



Haydn and His "Creation" --Thrilling Scene. 

In Haydn's "Creation" there occurs a passage, which cannot 
be easily equaled, much less suspassed, either for its sublimity 
or for the simplicity of the means employed. The point re- 
ferred to is that wonderful transition from minor to major on the 
words, "Let there be light, and there was light," connected 
with which there is an interesting anecdote: 

In the year 1808, a grand performance of the "Creation" took 
place in Vienna. Haydn was present, but he was so old and 
feeble that he had to be wheeled in a chair in the theatre, where 
a princess of the house of Esterhazy took her seat by his side. — 
This was the last time that Haydn appeared in public, and a 
very impressive sight it must have been to see the aged father 
of music listening to the "Creation" of his younger days, but 
too old to take any share in the performance. The presence of 
the old man roused intense enthusiasm among the audience, 
which could no longer be suppressed as the chorus and orches- 
tra burst in fall power upon the superb passage, "And there was 
light!" 

Amid the tumult of the enraptured audience the old compo- 



Personal. ANECDOTES. 101 

ser was seen striving to raise himself. Once on his feet, he mus- 
tered up all his strength, and, in reply to the applause of the 
audience, he cried out as loud as he was able : "No, no ! not from 
me, but" pointing to Heaven, "from there — from Heaven above — 
comes all ! Saying wheh, he fell back in his chair, faint and 
exhausted, and had to be carried out of the room. 



Dickens' Illustrations. 

On one occasion Charles Dickens was upholding the theory 
that whatever trials and difficulties might stand in a man's path, 
there was also somthing that he might be thankful for. "Let me 
in proof thereof," said Dickens, "relate a story. Two men were 
to be hanged at Newgate for murder. The morning arrived; 
the hour approached; the bell of St. Sepulcher's began to toll; 
the convicts were pinioned; the procession was formed; it ad- 
vanced to the fatal beam; the ropes were adjusted round the 
poor men's necks. There were thousands of motley sight-seers 
of both sexes, of all ages, men, women and children in front of 
the scaffold, when just at that second of time a bull, which was 
being driven to Smithfield, broke its rope and charged the mob 
right and left, scattering the people everywhere with its horns. — 
Whereupon one of the condemned men turned to his, too, 
equally unfortunate companion, and quietly observed, "I say, 
Jack, it's a good thing we ain't in that crowd ! " 



Miss Thurston's Pleading Pigeon. 

Miss Nellie Thurston made a balloon ascension from Oneida 
in November, 1878, and after a journey of sixty miles, landed 
safely at Burlington Flats, Otsego county, making the distance 
in forty minutes. She took with her a pigeon from the Oneida 
Community, and when she reached an altitude of three miles 
undertook to release it. Miss Thurston opened the cage, but 
the bird would not fly. She then put it on the edge of the bas- 
ket, and it immediately jumped down to the bottom and nestled 
by her in a manner which seemed to say: "Please protect me." 



102 ENTERTAINING Personal. 

Miss Thurston says she felt sorry for the pretty little bird, and 
dreaded to throw it out, but thought she would try it again, and 
see if it would not go willingly; so she sat it on the edge of the 
basket again, when it immediately alighted on her shoulder. She 
then took it in her hand, gave it a toss, but instead of starting 
for the world below it sailed around the balloon several times 
and alighted again in the basket. She took it again into her 
hand, petted it, and with words of sympathy and assurance she 
she gave it a kiss, saying: "Birdie, you will go home all right," 
and the pigeon, as if comprehending the words of kindness and 
assurance, flew from her hand and was soon lost sight of. It did 
not, however, reach its home until the next day. 



Incident in Mrs. Partington's Early Life. 

Mr. B. P. Shillaber has been writing a bright and graceful 
article concerning the good old lady — Mrs. Partington. Her 
first innocently wise saying was inspired by a remark of one of 
the newspaper men, on a night when a steamer from England 
had brought news of an advance in breadstuffs, who said he 
did not care, as he bought his flour by the half-dollar's worth. — 
"Mrs. Partington" was then made to say, in the little paragraph 
that Mr. Shillaber wrote, that it made "no difference to her 
whether flour was dear or cheap, as she always received just so 
much for a half dollar's worth." This was copied the next day, 
and the inducement was thus offered to try again. This meeting 
with like success, they were kept on, until Mrs. P., as she 
expressed it, had obtained a "memento" she could not check. — 
Mr. Shillaber adds: "Mrs. Partington" was an entirely new 
creation, for I had never seen the 'Rivals' acted, nor read it, and 
though I knew, from extracts in comic compilations, of Mrs. 
Malaprop's existence and character, it moved no pulse of my 
ambition. The real inspiration which prompted the effort to 
continue the Partington sayings, when the idea took positive 
form, was the constant hearing of expressions, by very excellent 
people, that seemed too funny to be allowed to pass into for- 
getfulness, — queer errors, inadvertantly made, and otherwise." 



Personal ANECDOTES. 103 

The News Boy. ---The Scientist. ---Anecdotes of 
Thomas A. Edison. 

Many interesting anecdotes are told of the great inventor, 
Thomas Alva Edison. At the age of twelve, his father secured 
him the position of news boy on the Grand Trunk Railroad 
between Detroit and Port Huron. His average daily earnings 
during the four years he was engaged in selling periodicals on 
the train was one dollar. At times he employed as many as four 
assistants. In order to sell more of his papers, and thus do the 
greatest good to the greatest number, and at the same time make 
it pay, he would telegraph in advance the head lines of the war 
news colums, which proved a great success. While a news boy, 
he purchased three hundred pounds of type, and printed a 
weekly paper called " The Grand Trunk Herald. " The work 
was done in a smoking car, and the impressions were taken by 
pressing the paper down upon the type with his hands. The 
columns were filled with railroad news and gossip contributed by 
conductors engineers, and others. The paper reached a circula- 
tion of several hundred, and attained a reputation that even 
crossed the Atlantic, and called forth a favorable notice in the 
London Times. George Stephenson, the engineer, who built the 
tubular bridge at Montreal, when passing over the road one day, 
found the young news boy hard at work upon the Herald, and at 
once ordered an extra edition printed for his own use. While 
engaged as train boy he also indulged in frequent chemical ex- 
periments. Leaving his phosphorus bottle on one occcasion, un- 
corked, the water evaporated and the phosphorus set fire to the 
car. This sad accident of course attracted the attention of the 
conductor, who with difficulty extinguished the flames, and then 
tossed the young man's laboratory to the winds; and, it is said, 
closed the drama by "threshing Edison." 

All this did not discourage the great boy. He soon after is 
found constructing a telegraph line between his home in Port 
Huron and the residence of his young friend, James Ward. Com- 
mon stove pipe wire insulated with bottles placed on nails driven 



io 4 ENTERTAINING Personal 

into posts and trees constituted the line. The first magnets 
used were made with wire wound with rags for insulation, and 
a piece of spring brass formed the key. It is said the two boys 
were somewhat mixed as to the relative value of dynamic and 
static electricity for telegraphic purposes, and so the first attempt 
to generate a current was by means of a couple of cats rubbed 
vigorously at each end of the line at an appointed time! This 
effort proved a sad failure in every respect, excepting of course, 
the two cats, that vanished like streaks of lightning, the midnight 
mew-sic of which young Tom never heard again. 

While an operator at one station, the telegraph office was 
greatly infested with cockroaches. Mr. Edison tacked several 
zinc strips to the walls at intervals of an eighth of an inch, and 
applied the positive and negative poles of a battery alternately 
to the strips. He next smeared the walls above the strips with 
molasses. The long legged bugs came up, and as they stepped 
from strip to strip, they 'closed the circuit,' received the electric 
shock and dropped dead by scores. Water pails put at the 
proper places received their bodies as they fell." 

The turning point in his life occurred later. In 1868 a gawky 
young fellow appeared in the Boston office. He was assigned to 
the New York wire operated at the New York end by a tele - 
gapher so rapid and expert that nobody could follow him. The 
New York man gave the new hand one trial at the top of his speed- 
It was a case of articulate lightning. But the gawky Western boy 
was equal to the occasion, and when he got through the New York 
man shouted through the Battery, "Who the devil are you, any- 
how?" The reply went back like lightning. "I'm Tom Edisor, 
old boy. — Shake hands and try it again !" The advice was good, 
but the New York operator did not see fit to take it. Here he tried 
his duplex system. It failed, and he was turned adrift again as an 
incorrigible Bohemian. Half in desperation, and half in hope 
that there might be a place for him somewhere, he turned up in 
New York, after his Boston adventure with duplex transmission : 
and here a happy accident proved the pivot upon which his ca- 
reer turned. The indicator of the Gold and Stock Company got 



Personal. ANECDOTES. 105 

out of order at a critical moment, and the raw-looking country 
boy repaired it. His cause was now taken up by Mr. Orton, of 
the Western Union Telegraph Company, with the quick insight 
that made that gentleman's success in the world; and his sub_ 
sequent triumphs have justified the first impression of his 
distinguished patron. His duplex transmission has become 
quadruplex transmissions. He has amassed a fortune, married, 
and has a little Tom Edison in the nursery. 



How Phil. Sheridan Disobeyed Orders. 

The recent gathering of the military men in Indianapolis, and 
the recital of reminiscences of the war which gave occasion for 
the organization of the Army of the Tennessee, recalls an in- 
cident in the military experience of Gen. Phil. Sheridan which 
is not generally known, and which has doubtless been forgotten 
by many who were cognizant of it at the time, driven from their 
minds by the glorious achievements which have made the name 
of Sheridan loved and honored throughout the land. At the 
beginning of the war he was a Captain in the regular army, 
having graduated at West Point in 1853. ^ n J S6i he was ap- 
pointed Quartermaster of the Army of the Southwest, under 
Gen. Curtis, with headquarters at Springfield, Mo. An expedi- 
tion to Arkansas was organized, and Gen. Curtis headed it in 
person. The march of the army was harassed by attacks 
from bushwhackers and guerillas, and there was great need of 
horses to meet and repulse these classes of 'combatants. Gen. 
Curtis dispatched a courier from Timber Hollows to Sheridan 
with instructions to forward immediately all the horses he could 
procure; if there was no money on hand with which to purchase 
them to go out and press them into the service. In those early 
days the war was not carried into Africa, so to speak, as in 
latter times, and Sheridan refused to run any risks by such an 
irregular proceeding, and sent word back to Curtis that he would 
send no horses for which he had no receipts; and, having no 
funds on hand, he could not procure them. Gen. Curtis was 



106 ENTERTAINING Personal 

furious at the presumption of the Quartermaster, and ordered 
the contumacious officer to forward his sword to the General 
and report to Gen. Halleck, in command of the department at 
St. Louis, under arrest. Gen. Sheridan left Springfield in pur- 
suance of these orders, and that was the last heard of him in the 
Army of the Southwest. In the spring of 1862 he appeared 
again as Colonel of the Second Michigan Cavalry, after which 
time his progress was rapid and brilliant, and known to the whole 
country. How he got out of the trouble with Gen. Curtis the 
archives of the War Department may be able to tell, but it is not 
known to those asssociated with him in Missouri. The stirring 
events of that period left but little time to look up the rec- 
ords of individuals, however famous. The episode was the ma. 
king of Philip, though. Had he not disobeyed orders he might 
and would in all probability have served through the war, rising 
no higher than a Brigade or Division Quartermaster. 



Too Much for General Washington. 

A cheerful view of Washington is given in a story once told 
by Mrs. Madison to a little girl, who now repeats it in Lippincott. 
"One day in Philadelphia," said Mistress Dolly Madison, "I was 
sitting in my parlor with a very dear friend. Mrs. R. B. Lee, 
when in walked Payne Todd (her son) dressed in ray calico bed- 
gown. While we were laughing at the figure he cut, the servant 
threw open the door, and announced General and Mrs. Wash- 
ington. What to do with that dreadful boy I didn't know. He 
could not face the President in that garb. Neither could he 
leave the room without meeting them, for the door they were 
entering was the only one. I made him crawl quickly under a 
low, broad settee on which I was sitting. I had just time to 
arrange the drapery when the Washingtons entered. After the 
courtly greeting, and the usual compliments of the season, there 
came from under the settee a heavy sigh, which evidently 
attracted the General's notice. However, I only talked and 
laughed a little lcuder, hoping to divert his attention, when — oh, 



Personal ANECDOTES. 107 

me! — there came an outcry and a kick that could not be ignored. 
So I stooped down and dragged Payne out by the leg. General 
Washington's dignity left him for once. Laugh ! Why, he fairly 
roared! He nearly went into convulsions. The sight of that 
boy in that gown, all so unexpected, coming wrong end first 
from under my seat — it was too much. 



Professor Alexander. 

Professor Joseph Addison Alexander, of Princeton Theological 
Seminary, was considered somewhat eccentric respecting the 
society of young ladies. He seemed studiously to avoid their 
presence, and is said on one occasion to have gone down 
through a second story window rather than go out through a par- 
lor filled with ladies. The compiler from his study window one 
day observed the learned Professor pacing up and down the long 
walk in front of his residence. His hands were clasped behind 
his back, and his head was down as if engaged in deep thought. 
While pacing towards the door several ladies entered the gate- 
way. With his head still down he turned and walked slowly 
towards the ladies, evidently not observing them. Both parties 
gradually approached each other and a collision seemed inevi- 
table. When the great scholar had almost run against the 
visitors he discovered their presence, and then with terrible 
celerity wheeled about and walked into the house. 

He was very popular with the students and would never 
allow them to be abused in his classes by examining committees. 
The writer well remembers when during an examination a mem- 
ber of one of the committees propounded a question, which, in 
substance was about the same as calling for an explanation of 
the Trinity. Professor Alexander immediately announced that 
his class had not gone over that field; in fact, it did not belong- 
to his department, but the class would await any explanations of 
the subject the member of the committee might see fit to make. 
This was carrying the war into Africa, and as the member pre- 
ferred peace, he excused himself and asked no more questions. 



108 ENTERTAINING Personal. 

Moody's Remarkable Anecdote of a Defaulter. 

A man came to me in one of the Eastern cities last winter, 
and said: "Mr. Moody, I want to become a Christian, but I 
can't pray. I have tried to, but it seems as if the heavens pro- 
test, and all is dark. " I probed him, and tried to find out the 
difficulty, and at last says I: "Isn't there some sin that you are 
covering up?" And the man colored to the roots of his hair, and 
says, "Mr. Moody, I will tell you. I am a defaulter for one 
thousand five hundred dollars. " Says I, "Why don't you con- 
fess?" He says, "I am going into business, and am going to 
make it up. I have a lovely wife and family, and I can't confess. 
It would be the ruin of my family, and my ruin. I am just go- 
ing into business, and expect to make that money, and to pay it 
back. I don't know but I may be wrong in that." "Yes," says 
I, "of course you can't pray with that difficulty over you. Going 
into business with other men's money! Just been robbing men!" 
"Oh! what shall I do?" "Make restitution." "I can't; it would 
be the ruin of me!" "How much have you got out of the one 
thousand five hundred dollars?" "Nine hundred,— some day I'll 
pay back every dollar. I can't go to myemplyers and confess. 
They will put me into the courts." "I don't know whether they 
will or not. " He said he couldn't do it, and went away, wanting 
me to pray for him "How can I, if you are not willing to make 
restitution?" I told him I would pray that God wouldn't give 
any sleep to his eyes or slumber to his eyelids until he gave back 
that money. The next day he came back and said he couldn't 
sleep. "Is there no other way out of this agony?" "No; do 
the right thing and God will set you right. " He shrank from it. 
"How can I do it? I am sure they will put me into the courts, 
and it will ruin my family. " Says I, "Do right, and the Lord 
will remember you. " Finally he put into my hands nine hundred 
and eighty-one dollars and twenty-one cents in a sealed envelope, 
and says, "That money follows me, and I don't want it any 
longer. I have taken the last cent my wife and I have, and if 
my friends will not save me from the penitentiary, it will be the 



Personal ANECDOTES. 109 

death of us. " I went to his employers, and got them into a 
room and told them the whole story. "There is some of your 
money, and I don't think you ought to ruin him. " Tears ran 
down their cheeks, and I saw they would deal mercifully with 
him; so I went down stairs and brought him up, and those three 
men got on their knees and prayed together. Friends rallied 
around him, and he has gone into business, and been successful 
from that hour. God delivered him, and he is reconciled and 
at peace. He had sins, and set his face to do right. If you want 
power, if you want God to bless you, make restitution. That 
comes with confession. There is no use of confessing sins if 
you are not willing to make restitution and be honest; and when 
honest with man and your neighbors, God will hear and bless 
you. 

An Incident in Prof. Swing's Early Life. 

Professor Swing, of the Central Church, Chicago, is very fond 
of fishing. Many are the summer evenings in which, accom- 
panied by his daughter, he may be seen enjoying the cool lake 
breeze at the pier with hook and line, filling his basket with the 
choicest bass. This laudable taste was very early developed, 
and is the occasion of a story the compiler heard the Professor 
relate in his own words. Near his native place a large stream 
was dammed for milling purposes, an event that happened about 
the time that young David appeared on the scene of action. 
The mill-dam, of course, soon abounded in a great variety of 
fish, and became celebrated as the best fishing place in all the 
region, but, alas, it was a dangerous place for little boys. On 
this account the "big boys" as the Professor styled them, would 
never allow him to accompany them in their fishing excursions 
if they could prevent it. Like the poor fellow that was cut in 
twain by the circular saw, who was pronounced a good citizen, 
but of limited knowledge concerning circular saws, young David, 
though ever so good a boy, was supposed to have but little 
knowledge of mill-dams. One evening he saw the "big boys" 
starting out for a fish. He knew if he could conceal his pres- 



1 1 o ENTERTAINING Personal. 

ence until all were so far away that it would be unsafe for those 
great fellows to allow him to return alone, they would then be 
compelled to let him go on to the mill-dam. But on this occa- 
sion he had not stolen his way very far, hiding in fence corners 
and behind trees, before he was discovered. 

"Dave, you little rascal, go home or we'll skin you alive;" 
shouted one of the big boys. Frightful as were these awful 
words, "Dave" was not seriously intimidated, and when the big 
boys threw out their lines into the mill-pond, Dave, at a safe dis- 
tance, and without their knowledge, threw out his. 

It was not long before a kind of under tow movement oc- 
curred in the waters in front of the boy, and a fish nearly as 
big as Dave himself (he thought so), swallowed the tempting bait. 
Then followed a terrible splashing, as if trees were falling in 
the waters and the big boys rushed to see what on earth was the 
matter. 

"Why Dave is that you?" exclaimed one. 

"Golly, what a fish," exclaimed another. 

" Dave you're a capital boy, " cried another. 

But the little man heeded not. He just gathered up that fish, 
line and all, with both hands, and pressing it to his heaving 
bosom struck for home as fast as he could run, with a few of the 
great fellows, this time following him ! It was the largest fish 
ever taken from the pond, and "Dave the little rascal," instead 
of being "skinned alive" was covered with glory. 



Jenny Lind's "Best Compliment." 

It was the remark of Jenny Lind that the best compliment 
ever paid her was by an old lady who resided in one of the hum- 
ble cottages of England. In her travels one day she took 
occasion to call at one of these unpretentious homes, where she 
was met by an old lady. "Have you ever heard Jenny Lind?" 
inquired the sweet singer. "No, I have not. It costs too much 
money for us poor folks; only the rich can hear her sing," 
responded the lady. Whereupon the sweet singer announced 



Personal. ANECDOTES. 1 1 r 

her acquaintance with Jenny Lind, and whom she had frequently 
heard sing, and offered to give the old lady a song. The woman 
was greatly delighted and at once assumed the position of au- 
ditor, while Jenny Lind began the familiar ballad, "Home, 
Sweet Home. " Ere the first verse was sung the old lady was in 
tears. She seemed entranced, and when the song was concluded, 
looking steadfastly at the singer, in earnest tones exclaimed, 
" This must be Jenny Lind/" 



Surrender of Vincennes (Ind.) to Col. Clark. 

It has been remarked that the conquests of Col. George 
Rogers Clark, in the far West during the Revolution, changed 
the boundaries of the Nation. But for his army of fearless 
Virginians theunion of all the Indian tribes, from Maine to Geor- 
gia, might have been effected against the Colonies and the whole 
current of our history changed. Gov. Hamilton, the British 
commander of the north-west, with headquarters at Vincennes, 
deemed it his special mission to effect this great union; and with 
this accomplished, it is certain the war would have been pro- 
longed, and quite probable, the Ohio river would have been our 
present Canadian boundary. How to break up the coalition 
was the problem which Col. Clark solved. He made up his 
mind to capture Gov. Hamilton. The story relating how the 
Colonel accomplished this important work is told by himself, as 
follows : 

To the Inhabitants of Vincennes. — Gentlemen: Being 
now within two miles of your village, with my army, determined 
to take your fort this night, and not being willing to surprise 
you, I take this method to request such of you as are true cit- 
izens and willing to enjoy the liberty I bring you, to remain still 
in your houses, and those, if any there be, that are friends to the 
king, will instantly repair to the fort and join the hair-buyer Gen- 
eral and fight like men. And if any such as do not go to the 
fort shall be discovered afterwards, they may depend on severe 
punishment. On the contrary, those who are true friends to 
liberty may depend on being well treated, and I once more re- 



ii2 ENTERTAINING Personal 

quest them to keep out of the streets. For every one I find in 
arms on my arrival I shall treat him as an enemy. 

(Signed) G. R. Clark. 

This notice had the desired effect. It inspired the friendly 
inhabitants with confidence and filled the enemy with terror. 
On the same day about sunset the little army set off to attack 
the fort. In order to convince Hamilton that the invaders con- 
sisted of a large army Col. Clark divided his men into platoons, 
each displaying a different flag, and after marching and counter- 
marching around some mounds within sight of the fort, and 
making other demonstrations of numbers and strength till dark, 
Lieut. Bayley, with fourteen men, was sent to attack the fort. — 
This party secured themselves within thirty yards of the fort, 
defended by a bank and safe from the enemy's fire, and as soon 
as a port hole was opend a dozen rifles were directed to the ap- 
erture. One soldier fell dead, and the rest could not be pre- 
vailed upon to stand to the guns. On the morning of the twen- 
ty-fourth, Col. Clark sent a flag of truce with the following letter 
to Col. Hamilton, while his men, for the first time in six days, 
were provided with breakfast : 

Sir: In order to save yourself from the impending storm that 
now threatens you, I order you immediately to surrender your- 
self, with all your garrison, stores, etc., etc. For if I am obliged 
to storm, you may depend upon such treatment as is justly due 
to a murderer Beware of destroying stores of any kind, or 
any papers or letters that may be in your possession, or hurting 
one house in town, for, by Heavens, if you do, there shall be no 
mercy shown you. G. R. Clark. 

Col. Hamilton replied as follows : 

Col. Hamilton begs leave to acquaint Col. Clark that he and 
his garrison are not disposed to be awed into any action unworthy 
of British subjects. 

The attack was renewed with great vigor, and soon after Ham- 
ilton sent another message to the invader, as follows : 

Gov. Hamilton proposes to Col. Clark a truce for three days, 




Col. G. R Clark. 



Personal ANECDOTES. 1 1 3 

during which time he promises that there shall be no defensive 
works carried on in the garrison, on condition that Col. Clark 
will observe, on his part, a like cessation of offensive work : that 
is, he wishes to confer with Col. Clark, as soon as can be, and 
promises that whatever may pass between the two and another 
mutually agreed on to be present, shall remain secret till matters 
be finished; as he wishes that whatever the result of the confer- 
ence may be, it may tend to the honor and credit of each party. 
If Col. Clark makes a difficulty of coming into the fort, Lieut. 
Gov. Hamilton will speak with him by the gate. 

Henry Hamilton. 

This message was written on the 24th of February, 1779, and 
manifested a feeling that Clark had expected. His reply was : 
"Col. Clark's compliments to Gov. Hamilton, and begs leave to 
say that he will not agree to any terms other than Mr. Hamil- 
ton surrendering himself and garrison prisoners at discretion. If 
Mr. Hamilton wants to talk with Col. Clark, he will meet him at 
the church with Capt. Helm." 

A conference was held as proposed, when Clark would agree 
only to a surrender, and threatened to massacre the leading men 
in the fort for supplying the indians with means of annoyance 
and purchasing scalps, if his terms were not accepted. In a few 
moments afterwards Col. Clark dictated the terms of surrender 
which were accepted. On the twenty-fifth of February 1779, 
the Fort was surrendered to the American troops and the garri- 
son treated as prisoners of war. The stars and stripes were 
unfolded above its battlements and thirteen guns celebrated the 
victory. 

Anecdote of Horace Greeley. 

Samuel Sinclair, who, during the latter part of Mr. Greeley's 
life was the business manager of the Tribime, tells the following 
interesting anecdote concerning Mr. G. One winter Mrs. Gree- 
ley went to the West Indies for her health, and the following 
spring she sent for her husband to come after her and bring her 
home to New York. Now, if there was one thing the old man 
8 



ii 4 ENTERTAINING Personal 

hated, it was the sea. The very smell of salt water made him 
sick. But nevertheless he obeyed his wife's call, as he was ac- 
customed to obey her every whim. In due time they got back 
to New York, and that morning, Mr. Sinclair received word that 
Greeley was not feeling well, owing to his voyage, and had de- 
cided to stay at home for the day. In the evening, Sinclair was 
going to Washington on business, and so, valise in hand, he called 
at Greeley's house an hour or two before the train was to start. 
He found Mr. Greeley in bed, and actually very ill, having suf- 
fered terribly from sea-sickness all the way out and all the way 
back. He was alone, the other members of the family being 
either ill or away from home, and so Sinclair determined to pass 
the night with him, giving up for that time his trip to the Capital. 
Presently Greeley wanted his back rubbed; and the impromptu 
nurse was somewhat surprised to find that his patient hadn't a 
stitch of clothing on his person, barring the sheets and quilts. 

"Sinclair," said he in that querulous whine of his, "I'm as na- 
ked as the day I was born. My trunks haven't arrived yet, and I 
haven't got a night gown." 

"But why not wear this?" pointing to the garment he had taken 
off before getting into bed. 

"Oh, I expect to be out to-morrow, and I want that to wear 
then. How the blazes would it look after I'd slept in it?" 

Well, in due time his luggage arrived, and Sinclair made a 
bolt for the article he wanted. After some rummaging he found 
it, and helped Mr. Greeley put it on. It was speedily fastened 
at the neck, and the nurse took up one of the wrists and tried 
to button it. There, however, he stuck fast. The ends wouldn't 
meet by fully two inches. He tugged and twisted to his utmost, 
but it was no go. Still, as the patient said nothing, he supposed 
it ought to be fastened, and redoubled his efforts for that pur- 
pose. For about twenty minutes he labored without success; 
then he said : 

"This is a failure. It won't fasten." 

"No," replied Greeley, with exasperating calmness; "I knew 
it wouldn't. The fact is, I never could button the infernal thing 



Personal ANECD OTES. 1 1 5 

myself. But you seemed to enjoy it, so I didn't disturb you." 
He lay back on the pillow for a few moments, as if thinking 

deeply, and then, sitting bolt upright, he brought his fist down 

upon the quilt savagely : 

"If Mormonism ever gets as far East as this, I'll be blamed if 

I don't have one wife to take care of my shirts!" 



Two Remarkable Answers to Prayer. 

The following instances where prayer seemed directly an- 
swered, came under the personal observation of the compiler: 

A student in attendance at Princeton Seminary who was 
poor in purse, but a very worthy young man, desired a new coat 
in which to labor during a vacation. He tried in many ways to 
obtain the money with which to purchase the coat, but all his 
plans seemed to fail. It seemed to him, apparently as a last re- 
sort that he would make the possession of the new coat a matter 
of special prayer, which he did, no doubt earnestly and in good 
faith. Shortly after this resolution, and while engaged in prayer 
one day in his study, there was a gentle rap at the door. Mr, 
C. opened the door and an entire stranger entered bearing a pack- 
age. The unknown gentleman stated to Mr. C. that when he 
was leaving New York, a friend gave him this package to deliver 
to some student in the Seminary. It was not intended for any 
special one, but if any student was in need of what the package 
contained he could have it. Mr. C. took the package and, open- 
ing it, found the coat, which he said God had given him in 
answer to his prayers. 

The Rev. Geo. Paull, one of the most promising students that 
ever graduated at the Western Theological Seminary at Pitts- 
burg, began his labors at Morrison, 111. While at this point, he 
resolved to carry out his long cherished intention of going to 
Africa as a missionary. No power could dissuade him from 
this purpose. The compiler endeavored to convince him that he 
would not live very long in such an unhealthy country, but Mr. 
P. remarked that his "bones would do more good in Africa than 



n6 ENTERTAINING Personal 

his life in America!" So to Africa he went and, years ago, he 
was buried on the Island of Corisco. But before his departure 
from Morrison, 111., Paull was in need of a considerable sum of 
money, over and above what the church owed him, to help him 
along in his purpose. This he made a matter of earnest prayer. 
It so happened that just before leaving, his congregation, which 
held him in the highest esteem, arranged for a farewell service to 
be held in the church. At the meeting, and entirely unknown to 
Mr. Paull, his friends brought a purse well filled with money, 
which the compiler in behalf of the congregation presented to 
Mr. Paull. After all was over and Mr. P. and myself had re- 
turned to his study, he took up this well filled purse in his right 
hand and stretching forth his arm said with great emphasis : — 
"Brother Mac, these good people think they gave this, but it 
is from God. I regard that (looking at the purse) as a direct 
answer to my prayers," 



Elder Seely's Experience in a Colored Church. 

Many years since, Elder Seely, of the First Presbyterian 
Church of Chicago, attended the evening service of the 
colored Presbyterian Church on Third Avenue. He modestly 
took a seat in the rear of the church, but it was soon evident that 
the whole congregation was aware that "Brudder" Seely was 
present. At the close of the services a collection was taken up, 
and while it was in progress the colored pastor leaned over his 
desk and as he watched the money being deposited on the table 
below, kept up a running fire of comments. When Elder Seeley 
was called upon for his contribution he could find nothing in his 
pocket smaller than a two dollar bill. Feeling that an officer of 
of a "leading church" must give something, he told the collector 
to take the bill and bring back one dollar in change. It was 
evident the pastor's eye was on him, for no sooner did the bill 
strike the table than he called out in loud and triumphant tones : 
"Bress de Lord, Brudder Seeley has given two dollars. " The 
brother did not wait for his change. 



Personal ANECDOTES. 117 

Dr. Rice on Matrimony. 

Dr. Nathan L. Rice, the first professor of Didactic Theology 
in the Presbyterian Theological Seminary of the North-West, 
and one of the best biblical scholars this country has ever pro- 
duced, desired among other good things, that his class should 
understand something concerning the subject of matrimony. 
The compiler well remembers a number of lectures delivered to 
the students on this important topic. In addition to this, the 
Doctor delivered the substance of these lectures before the North 
Presbyterian Church, of which, at the time, he was pastor. 
These lectures were also listened to by the students. In fact 
the boys were quite well "up" in matrimony at the conclusion 
of the series. But after all that was heard and said, the vener- 
able Doctor gravely remarked to the class at the opening of a 
new subject the next morning: "Young gentlemen, I desire to 
sum up all I have said on the subject of matrimony in these 
words: Never say the first unkind word, and then you ivill never 
say the second. " 



Dr. Breckenridge and the Advent Question. 

An interesting anecdote is told of the celebrated Dr. Robert 
J. Breckenridge, which, according to the good Doctor's interpre- 
tation, reflects the views then held by the Synod of Kentucky 
on the great advent question. He had just returned home from 
a meeting of the Synod when be was besought by a number of 
friends to give an account of the Synodical Sessions. 

"What all did they do, Doctor?" inquired a member. 

"Oh," said the Doctor, "some talking was done and some 
fighting was done over the advent question." "Ah?" exclaimed 
another, and without awaiting further details added: "Will y u 
tell us, Dr. Breckenridge, how the venerable Synod regarded that 
great question?" 

"Well," said Dr. B., "Some thought He would come: and 
some thought He wouldn't; but the great majority didn't care 
whether He came or not/" 



n8 ENTERTAINING Personal 

Gov. Seymour and the Baptist Deacon. 

When Governor Seymour vetoed the Law restricting the sale 
of ardent spirits, he received many letters from philanthropists, 
ministers and temperance lecturers, censuring his course, and 
admonishing him that his nocturnal slumbers would be haunted 
by ghosts of deceased inebriates and the wail of widows and 
orphans. The governor perused them with his accustomed cool- 
ness, thinking the tide then so strong against him would 
eventually turn in his favor. Meanwhile he received several 
consoling epistles from citizens of position and influence who 
took his view of the matter and endorsed his action. Among 
the latter was a correspondent signing himself "A Baptist Dea- 
con, " who advised Gov. S. to keep his composure, use the 
veto power when necessary, and pay no heed to howling fanatics. 
After expressing his hearty concurrence with the governor's 
views, that the law, as submitted to him, was "clearly unconsti- 
tutional," he added : "Gov. Seymour, I have been a deacon, in 
good standing, in the Baptist Church, for thirty years. I have 
read my Bible carefully from Genesis to Revelation. I have read 
of our Savior and his disciples freely using (though never abusing) 
ardent spirits; and on one occasion we are told that he abso- 
lutely turned water into wine at a wedding supper; a fact cold 
water lunatics cannot deny. I repeat, governor, I have read 
my Bible from Genesis to Revelation; and in all my read- 
ing I have found but one man who called for water, and he 
was in hades, where he ought to be. " 



President White, 



President White, of Wabash College, was a fine looking, dig- 
nified, impressive and careful man. His words were always well 
chosen ; his many addresses before college assemblies were 
always impressive. On the rostrum in the chapel one day, and 
before all the students, he was lecturing on friendship, and fidel- 
ity. He had just removed his gold spectacles from his face 
and placed them in the case which at the moment he held in his 



Personal ANECDOTES. 1 1 9 

right hand. Desiring to make his assertion very emphatic, he 
raised his right arm and exclaimed: "Young gentlemen, it is 
better to have the friendship of a dog than his dislike. " The 
arm came down with good force on the word dog. and at 
the same instant out flew his gold spectacles, and went rattling 
in pieces over the floor. For a moment the President hesitated, 
and the boys were on the eve of a laugh, when Dr. White ex- 
claimed, "There, gentlemen, is the force of the argument ! n — 
Several hundred boys, and even the good President, lost their 
dignity, and the old chapel resounded with laughter. 



An Incident in Dr. Hodge's Recitation Room. 

A class of nearly a hundred students, of which the compiler 
was a member, was one day reciting before the venerable Dr. 
Charles Hodge, in exegesis at Princeton, when a remarkable 
scene transpired, that no member of that class can well forget. 
The venerable professor was seated in his high chair and held in 
his hand a pocket testament opened at the fifth chapter of Ro- 
mans, the words of which he was critically examining and its 
profound truths ably expounding. This exposition continued as 
usual, the entire class being occupied in taking notes, until the 
professor reached the nineteenth verse, which reads: "for as by 
one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obe- 
dience of one shall many be made righteous." After he had 
read and translated this verse he laid down the book and looked 
out over the class, apparently engaged in deep thought and 
after quite a while, in the most earnest and serious tones re- 
marked: "Young gentlemen! This is the pith of the whole 
matter. " Every eye was now riveted. Not a pencil movement 
was heard. The good Doctor, still looking out upon the class, 
his eyes filling with tears, after another solemn pause, as if the 
study of a lifetime, and in fact, all study, was being crowded into 
that verse, repeated in tremulous tone : "Young gentlemen : This 
is the pith of the whole matter:" Under a still deeper emotion, 
these words were again repeated. The students were overwhelmed 



120 ENTERTAINING Personal 

by the solemnity and power of these strangely emphatic as- 
sertion^ and nothing more was done in the way of exegesis, 
during the hour. 



How Lincoln Dispatched Business. 

The compiler called on President Lincoln one day at his office in 
Washington, when about twenty persons were present on business. 
Mr. Lincoln asked each one as he came forward, "What, sir, will 
you have me do?" A Senator wished to know the result of the 
engagement at Chancellorsville, a battle raging at the time. The 
President, referring to some special plans in the battle, remarked, 
"We have made a great attempt and failed, and it hurts me." 

Another gentleman assured Mr. Lincoln that Massachusetts 
would stand by him. "Tell Massachusetts," said he, "if she will 
stick to me, I will stick to her as long as I can." 

At this stage a soldier hobbled to the door on crutches. The 
President immediately beckoned him forward, and at once 
attended to his request. One gentleman appeared with a large 
package of papers under his arm, and as he was slow in response 
to the President's question "What will you have me to do?" Mr. 
Lincoln interrupted him by asking "Do you want me to read 
all those papers?" "Yes," said the man. "Well I can't do it," 
said Lincoln. His business was in connection with the Navy 
Department, and the President said: "Show them to my Navy, 
and if they back you, then I will. " 

An old gentleman desired a pass to the battlefield, where he 
had a son. He showed Mr. Lincoln a pass over a portion of 
the way. "Where did you get that?" asked the President- — 
"From the War Department," responded the aged man. "Then 
sir, that is the place for you to get another one," replied Mr. 
Lincoln. The rapidity with which he dispatched business was 
wonderful to behold. 




Sir Edwin Landseer. 



ANECDOTES. 121 



ANIMAL STORIES. 



Sagacity of a Horse that Escaped from the Custer 
Massacre. 

Col. Rice, who has seen service in the Indian campaign, 
relates a striking anecdote concerning the sagacity of a horse 
which lost his rider in the Custer massacre. Some months after 
that battle a steamer having on board a portion of the Fifth In- 
fantry was pursuing her voyage near the mouth of the Powder 
River, on the Yellowstone. The men on the look out, one of 
whom was the famous scout Buffalo Bill, who was scouring the sur- 
rounding country for indications of the hostile Indians, saw in the 
distance an object moving slowly towards the boat. They anx- 
iously scrutinized it as it continued to approach, supposing that 
it might be the advance of a body of hostiles. Their suspicions 
were not lessened when they discovered it to be a horse, which 
might be that of a scout watching their movements or signaling 
the advance of the enemy in force. When the animal came to 
the bank of the river, however, it was seen to be unmounted, and 
alone, and on approaching the boat it neighed and pranced, 
manifesting every sign of its joyful recognition. The boat was 
stopped, and, when the horse was taken on board, it was found 
to bear the brand, "Seventh Cavalry." The place where it was 
found was seventy or eighty miles in a bee line from the scene 
of the Custer fight. The animal had evidently seen or heard the 
boat in the distance, and rcognized it as a sign of civilization, 
and, being tired of its free life in the wilderness, gladly embraced 
the opportunity of returning to its accustomed duties. 



122 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

A Horse found Swimming in the Ocean. 

Capt. Edwards, of the fishing smack Amelia, reports that 
when off "Skunnett, " on the Rhode Island shore, some time 
since, he discovered an object swimming off his bow which he 
finally made out to be a horse. He made sail but could not 
overhaul the animal, which was making desperate struggles to 
reach the main land three miles away. At times he would dis- 
appear from sight in the waves which broke over him, — the sea 
running very high at the time, — but a moment later would 
reappear, and, with a loud snort and toss of the head, would 
shake off the water from his ears and eyes, and then renew the 
struggle. At last he made the shore, and, without pausing a 
moment, dashed up the beach, his long tail and curling mane 
iloating outward on the wind. The splendid animal was possesed 
of immense strength, else he could not have swam that long dis- 
tance in such a sea. Where he came from nobody knows. No 
vessel was in sight from which he could have escaped. 



An Owl Imprisoned by Martins. 

The owner of a large farm not far from Lancaster, Pa., had an 
opportunity some time since of witnessing how an interloper is 
punished by the Martin species of birds. A pair of Martins had 
taken possession of a small box, and were building their nest. — 
One day, while they were absent, a screech owl took possession 
of the box, and when the martins came home at night, this little 
owl would not allow them to enter. The smaller birds were 
nonplussed for a while, and in a short time flew away, seemingly 
giving up the fight. But if the owl was of this opinion he 
was mistaken, for in a short time the little ones returned, 
bringing with them a whole army of their companions, who 
immediately set to work and, procuring mud, closed up the en- 
trance to the box. They then all flew away. In a few days the 
box was examined and the owl was found dead. 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 123 

Miss Fleshman's Terrific Fight with a Rattlesnake. 

Miss Mary Fleshman, daughter of Mr. Perry Fleshman, living 
two miles east of Platte City, Mo., had a thrilling adventure re- 
cently with a rattlesnake. She was riding on horseback along 
through the woods, near that city, when she dropped her glove. 
She dismounted to secure it, and while stooping to pick it up, 
she discovered a large rattlesnake at least six feet long, coiled 
and in the act of striking. It did strike, but failed to reach her 
feet. She sprang back with a cry of horror, but almost instantly 
the snake recoiled and struck again. This time the venomous 
fangs struck in the front part of her bonnet, and the hold tearing 
out with the force of the blow and the weight of the snake, it fell 
on the ground at her feet. Instantly it reared up in front of her, 
its venomous breath right in her face. Scarcely knowing what 
she did, she seized the snake just below the head with both 
hands and holding for a moment, with a desperate energy, she 
slung it from her and lied. It was a narrow escape, but Miss 
Fleshman sustained no other injuries than those which result 
from violent excitement and nervous prostration. 



A Thrilling Adventure with a Bear and Indians in 
the Black Hills. 

A man named Montgomery Smith, hailing from St. Louis, had 
two singular and narrow escapes rolled into one, in the 
following manner: He left a camp about two miles up the 
Hills to bring letters to Deadwood, and trying to shorten the 
distance a little he lost the regular trail and got into a bad bit 
of country. While hunting for the trail he came across fresh 
signs of Indians, and while hurrying out of the neighborhood he 
ran directly upon a large brown bear which was sleeping on the 
sunny side of a thicket. The thicket was on a side hill, and 
Smith was going at a good pace when he turned the clump. — 
The bear was so near when the man caught sight of him that 
there was neither time to halt nor chance to turn out, and bruin 



124 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

i 
was cleared by a fly leap. He made a stroke at Smith as he went 

over, inflicting a slight scratch on one leg, and then set off after 

the miner with the intention of eating him for dinner. The 

flight led over broken ground, up and down a ridge, and then 

along the base of a broken ledge. 

Knowing that the bear would soon overtake him, Smith was 
on the alert for some place of refuge, and he found a good one. 
Close to the ground, was a rift in the ledge made by a portion of 
the rocks settling down or crumbling away, and the bear was not 
a hundred feet in his rear. There was no time to guess whether 
the crevice was big enough to admit the man, and too small to 
let the bear in after him, or so small that the victim would be 
there overtaken and devoured. He had dropped his gun to aid 
his flight, and running at full speed he made a dive and went 
into the crevice head first, raking his shoulders and back in a ter- 
rible manner. The bear wasn't ten seconds behind him, and 
as Smith reached the back end of the cave, which was not over 
six feet deep, the bear put his head into the mouth of the cave 
and tried to work in his body. This he couldn't do, owing to 
his stout shoulders, but for a quarter of an hour Montgomery 
Smith was doubtless the worst frightened man in North America. 
There was room enough for him to turn around in, but he was 
compelled to lie at full length and look into the fiery eyes of 
a bear which could get within four feet of him and wanted to 
come nearer. Bruin didn't give up trying till he had sadly cut 
and bruised himself against the stones, and his snarls and growls 
put more religious thoughts into Smith's head than perhaps 
had ever lodged there before. The bear couldn't get him, but 
neither could he get the bear. He had nothing to shoot with, 
neither food nor drink, and yelling at a bear to clear out and go 
home has no effect in that rarified atmosphere. The mouth of 
the crevice was ten feet long, and Smith could look out over his 
trail for forty rods or more, no matter at what point the bear 
was. 

The animal was walking up and down the ledge, probably fish- 
ing for a plan by which he might get something better than roots 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 125 

for dinner, when the miner caught sight of three Indians creep- 
ing along the trail he had made. They had, perhaps, followed it 
for a mile or more, and must have known that the bear had the 
first claim. The redskins had just come into view when they 
saw the bear; the bear saw them, and Smith saw the whole 
thing. The bear looked in on Smith in a despairing manner, and 
then made a bee line for the red men. They fired at him once a 
piece and then turned and ran, and after about three minutes 
waiting, Smith crawled out and made good his escape. 



How a Dog Adapted Himself to Circumstances. 

A story is told in the German papers about the manner in 
which an intelligent dog adapted himself to his condition. A 
deaf-and-dumb lady living in a German city had as companion, 
a younger woman, who was also deaf and dumb. They lived in a 
small set of rooms opening on the public corridor of the house. 
Somebody gave the elder lady a little dog as a present. For 
some time, whenever any body rang the bell at the door, the dog 
barked to call the attention of his mistress. The dog soon dis- 
covered, however, that neither the bell nor the barking made 
any impression on the women, and he took to the practice of 
merely pulling one of them by the dress with his teeth, in order 
to explain that some one was at the door. Gradually the dog 
ceased to bark altogether, and for more than seven years before 
his death he remained as mute as his two "companions." When 
expression by sound was useless, it fell with him into absolute 
disuse. 



Death Struggle Between a Sea-Lion and Sturgeon. 

The following fight between a Sea-Lion and Sturgeon was 
witnessed by some passengers on a boat in San Francisco Bay: 

The Sturgeon had swam away from the nutritive mud of the 
San Joaquin in quest of something to suck in the bay, and its 
rlippered enemy had entered the bay on a prowl. One wanted 
to eat and the other to escape. The seal saw its chance for a 



126 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

magnificent meal on what is too often sold as sea bass in chow- 
der, and the sturgeon was painfully conscious that nature ought 
to have endowed it with shark's teeth and the capacity to crush 
like the squid. Fish and mammal came to the surface, the for- 
mer to breathe, and the latter because it couldn't stay down. — 
The seal bit viciously at the gill openings of its adversary, and 
showed a superior finesse in planning the campaign, while the 
sturgeon lashed the water powerfully with its unequally-lobed 
tail, and occasionally administered a stunning blow to the seal. 
Blood flowed profusely, and the water was dyed for yards 
around, but eventually the sturgeon yielded up the ghost, being 
seized unluckily by the tail and paralyzed in movement by hav- 
ing its only propeller nearly bitten off. Thus wounded and 
circumvented it desisted from the battle, and the seal adminis- 
tered the coup de grace, and towed his dinner beneath the 
waves. The spectacle was an exciting one. 



The Dying Monkey. 



"I never saw such a thing in my life, " said James Djnohue, 
the night watchman of the Central Park Museum. Zip, one of 
of Mr. Barn urn's monkeys, was taken suddenly and dangerously 
ill. He was a great favorite with his companions — their leader 
in mischief. Superintendent Conkling examined him, and said 
he would die. We got a bed of straw and cotton for him, and 
left warm milk by his side. 

"Yes, in all my experience as a night watchman among beasts, 
I never saw siich a thing in my life. At eleven o'clock I went 
to the cage. Usually the monkeys at night sit huddled together, 
sound asleep; but this time they were all wide awake, sit- 
ting silent and moveless, watching Zip's dying agonies. Zip 
lay in a corner, sobbing and moaning. Jack and Pete, the two 
trick monkeys, were at his side. Jack had Zip's head resting on 
his bosom, while Pete every now and then dipped his paw in the 
milk and wet Zip's lips. 

"But there's a stranger thing about it yet," Mr. Donohue con- 



Animals, ANECDOTES. 127 

tinued. "At midnight Zip died. Then came what my partner 
Reilly and Barnum's man say they never saw the like of. As 
Zip's head fell limp in the arms of Jack he gave a little low 
squeal, and Pete sprang to his side. Pete looked at Zip, lifted 
up one of his paws, tapped him gently on his breast, pat his ear 
to his heart, raised his head, and then gave a shrill squeal. Jack 
in answer dropped Zip just as naturally as a human being would 
at the first intimation that the form he held was dead. Pete was 
the first to recover himself. Slowly he approached Zip, exam- 
ined him closely, raised him in his arms, dropped him hard on 
the floor of the cage, and, as Zip did not move, sprang to the 
uppermost perch. Wasn't that strange?" 

"Then, sir," continued Mr. Donohue, "came the most extra- 
ordinary thing ever witnessed in the Park. The monkeys set up 
the most piercing screams. The baby monkeys pressed close to 
their mothers, and the females close to the males. All chattered 
and chattered, and pointed to poor Zip. Finally Pete and Jack, 
followed by all the others, sprang to the bottom of the cage. — 
They were all silent now, moving slow, and in form of a circle 
they gradually came nearer. Then hugging close, they stopped. 
All night long they remained watching the body, and I never 
saw a wake that could beat that one for earnestness and sym- 
pathy. " 

The Pet Serpent. 

A remarkable story of "snake charming" was recently brought 
to light at Annapolis, Md. Mr. Luke Brewer, who lives near the 
dock, is the father of a little girl and boy aged respectively nine 
and six years. He discovered one day that these children had 
been in the habit of playing with a water snake three and a half 
feet in length. It appears that the reptile had made its land 
heme underneath the kitchen flooring of Mr. Brewer's dwelling, 
and came thence through an orifice in the ground just outside 
the house. The little girl on the day mentioned, informed her 
father that they had a pretty pet just like an eel that came out 
of a hole in the ground, and played with them and the kittens. 



123 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

He asked the child to show him where it was, but was told that 
it would not come out while he was there. He left for a few 
minutes, and while returning was met by his daughter, who said 
she had called her pet, and it was now playing with her brother. 
The frightened father hastened to the yard, and was almost para- 
lyzed with fear on discovering his little boy caressing the snake's 
head. He ordered the little fellow away. The child reluctantly 
complied by stepping back, whereupon the father seized a club, 
when the reptile commenced to make for its den. The boy then 
moved towards it, calling it endearing names, and was about to 
pick it up when Mr. Brewer dispatched it, against the earnest 
and tearful entreaties of the infatuated children. The boy, a 
robust, hearty little fellow, refused to be comforted, abstaining 
from food the rest of the day, and begging to be allowed to bring 
the dead serpent into the house. Mr. Brewer thinks that the 
children had been amusing themselves all summer with their 
strange pet. The tail of the snake for a distance of three inches 
from the end bore evidence that two kittens, which were in the 
house, had also been participants in the sport. 



Saved by Feigning Death. 

There are on the foothills in Gunnison County, Colorado, 
at certain seasons of the year, great numbers of deer and elk, 
with many mountain lions and bear. William Yule and brother 
left Mr. Preston's ranch on the Gunnison to hunt for deer and 
elk. A wagon drawn by two animals, guns, ammunition, and pro- 
visions completed their outfit. They traveled all day and 
reached the hills about nightfall and encamped. Seeing the 
next morning signs of game, they concluded to remain at least 
one day, and try their luck. Early in the morning they started 
in different directions with their guns, powder and ball. After 
going about five miles from camp and seeing no game, William 
Yule concluded to return. He had proceeded but a short dis- 
tance before he heard, as he thought, the rustling of the dry 
leaves. Looking up, he saw, only about thirty yards from him, 



Animals, ANECDOTES. 129 

a huge bear coming directly towards him with open mouth, grow- 
ling, and giving other evidences of a thirst for blood. Yule 
waited until the brute came within a few paces of him, when he 
took deliberate aim, but unfortunately his gun missed fire. 

The ferocious beast ran directly against the hunter, knocking 
him down, and as quick as thought Yule turned over on his 
face and feigned to be dead. The bear bit him severely in four 
places, disabling one arm and one leg. After the lapse of a few 
minutes, neither feeling nor hearing the beast, Yule cautiously 
raised his head, and saw his antagonist about thirty yards off, ap- 
parently covering up something with grass. Seeing a tree near 
him, he made up his mind to reach it and get up it if possible, 
even though seriously wounded. So off he crawled through the 
snow, keeping an eye attentively on the bear and the tree. — 
Reaching the tree, he started to climb it, and the bear started 
from his retreat directly towards him, growling and gnashing his 
teeth. He soon reached the tree. Yule had gone up only a 
few feet — just high enough for his own safety, but not too high 
for the bottoms of his feet to be touched by the nose of the 
beast. He again attempted to use his gun, but in vain. The 
animal whined, growled, and gnawed at the tree. After a while 
he returned to what appeared to be a large pile of grass, and 
commenced again to work as though he was concealing some- 
thing. 

Yule though suffering much from cold and his wounds, resolved 
to make a last effort to save his life. So descending cautiously 
to the ground while the bear was at work, he crawled a few steps 
till he got a low, bushy tree between himself and the bear, 
watching the animal closely in the meantime. He could not 
travel more than a hundred yards at a time without resting. At 
last he reached the camp, completely exhausted. 

The next day Col. Cashion, James Preston, P. T. Stevens, 
and John M. Smith armed themselves and went to the scene of 
the fight, and when within about thirty-five or forty yards of a 
large pile of straw, they saw a large beast emerge therefrom and 
make towards them, evidently with the intention to fight, but he 



130 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

did not proceed far before he fell, pierced with ten balls. He 
weighed eight hundred pounds gross, and was neither a grizzly 
or a cinnamon, but a cross between the two, called silver tip or 
range bear, a malignant and ferocious beast. Covered up in his 
bed was found a large, dead deer, which it was supposed a 
mountain lion had killed and the bear had stolen. 



How the Swallows Come Home. 

Near the Buckan school house in Homestead, Michigan, 
stands a large hollow tree, which it seems has been chosen as the 
general headquarters of the chimney swallows of that part of the 
country. It is said that the swallows commence to congregate 
every afternoon at about four o'clock, coming in immense num- 
bers from all directions, they continue to assemble for about two 
hours, when the last bird having apparently come home, at 
about six they form a circle, one side of which comes close 
to a hole in the side of the tree, which is about four inches in di- 
ameter, and which has been selected as the main entrance. As 
the birds fly past they begin to go in as fast as they can, two or 
four at a time; at this rate, flying in as fast as possible, it takes 
about two hours for them all to enter. After they have all en- 
tered, the tree, on inspection, appears to be perfectly full. 



A Duck Battle. 



A gentleman from Packwaukee, Wis., relates the particulars 
of a novel sight he witnessed at Buffalo Lake. His attention 
was attracted towards the lake by a roar that resembled the ap- 
proach of a hurricane, and, on looking there he discovered 
myriads of ducks engaged in mortal combat. He watched them 
for a while, and discovered that the battle was between the Mal- 
lards and the canvas-backs, who were evidently striving for the 
supremacy on the celery fields. The lake was fairly strewn with 
feathers, as if all the ducks in the land had been picked for the 
occasion. 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 131 

The Largest Snake in America. 

The largest snake ever killed in North Ameriea was recently 
dispatched by Mr. G. M. Smith and son, of Quapaw Bayou, 
La. While he and his son William, aged about thirteen years, 
were out in the woods driving up cattle, their attention was at- 
tracted by the bleating of a calf some distance from them. — 
Thinking probably that the poor animal had got bogged, they 
started to its assistance. They had gone a short distance down 
the bayou when they discovered a yearling, about two years 
old, in the coils of a huge snake, the body of which was suspen- 
ded from the limb of a black gum tree about twenty feet from 
the ground, and which projected from the bank immediately 
over the water. Mr. Smith and his son were almost terror-strick- 
en at the sight, and stood speechless for several moments, 
unconsciously watching the movements of the huge reptile as 
he entwined himself around the already dead body of the year- 
ling, and at every coil of the snake they could hear the bones of 
the calf break. 

After coiling itself around the lifeless form of the yearling and 
crushing every bone in its body, the serpent let loose its hold 
from the tree and dropped down alongside its victim, and began 
licking it all over, preparatory, it is supposed, to swallowing it. 
About this time Mr. Smith recovered his senses, and, after 
watching the monster snake open its capacious mouth several 
times, he fired on it with his rifle, striking it near the head, and 
was quickly followed by his son, who discharged a double-bar- 
reled gun loaded with buck shot. Both re-loaded as quickly 
as possible and again fired on his snakeship. In the meantime 
the reptile had coiled itself into a huge mass, and was making a 
hissing sound that could be heard fully one hundred yards, and 
was protruding its forked tongue several feet. After discharging 
about a dozen volleys each, Mr. Smith and his son succeeded in 
dispatching one of the largest snakes ever seen in Louisiana, and 
probably, North America. It measured thirty-one feet in length, 
and the body measured, ten feet from the head, thirty inches in 
circumference, and about the centre of the body forty-two 



132 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

inches. It has a regular succession of spots, black and yellow, 
alternating, extending from its head to its tail, while either side 
is deep purple. Mr. Smith has no idea what kind of a snake it 
is, but thinks it must be of the boa-constrictor species. No 
doubt this snake has for many years inhabited that section of 
country and depredated upon the young animals that came 
within its reach. The skin has been preserved. 



A Close Fight with a Panther. 

A Canadian hunter named Jacob Farquarson, while passing 
through the forest between White Fish Lake and Black Trout 
Lake, near the headwaters of the Madawaska river, encountered 
a puma, or American panther. He came across the carcass of a 
deer, which he stopped to examine, and found it to be the remains 
of a large upland caribou. While looking at it he heard a noise at 
some distance off among the tree tops. Shortly after the sounds 
were repeated, and, on looking up, he saw a large animal leaping 
from tree to tree toward the spot where he stood. He was armed 
with a Ballard rifle, and soon as the animal came near enough he 
fired at it, when to his surprise and alarm, the brute sprang from 
the tree directly at him. In the meantime the hunter had rap- 
idly reloaded, and having jumped aside and behind a large pine 
before the infuriated animal could recover for a second spring, 
he gave it another bullet. Both shots had taken effect, as was 
afterwards dicovered, but neither in a vital part. After the sec- 
ond shot the puma turned and darted with a roar at the hunter, 
who drew a long, keen-edged knife, and with his back against a 
tree awaited the enemy. The enraged animal sprang at him and 
fastened his long, curved claws into his shoulder, when he drove 
the knife repeatedly to the hilt into its breast. Both came to the 
ground together, but the struggle did not last long, for the huge 
animal, weakened by the loss of blood from the bullet and knife 
of Farquarson, soon turned over dead. The animal, which is 
quite rare in Canada now, was one of the largest size, measuring 
nine feet from the nose to the extremity of the tail. 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 133 

A Diver's Adventure with a Devil Fish. 

A Diver engaged at Belfast, Australia, in the Moyne River, 
during last year, had the following terrible adventure with a Devil 
Fish: It appears that Mr. Smale had fired off a charge of dyna- 
mite and displaced a large quantity of stones at the bottom of 
the river. He went down to prepare for lifting these stones by 
the aid of chains into the punt. While engaged in rolling over a 
large stone, he saw something which he supposed at the time was 
a piece of clean-looking kelp moving about in front of where he 
was working. In a few seeonds this object came in contact with 
the diver's arm, about which it quickly coiled, partly holding him. 
Immediately as Mr. Smale touched what was coiled round his 
arm he became aware of his position, and tried to extricate 
himself from the grasp of a "sea-devil," but found it a far more 
difficult job than he anticipated. Catching hold of the part 
hanging from the arm, he walked along the bottom of the river 
toward the end of it, when he saw he was firmly held by one of 
the feelers of a large octopus, better known among sailors as the 
"devil-fish." Mr. Smale tried to pull the fish off from its hold of 
the rocks, but without effect for some time. At last the fish, 
perhaps thinking it had not got sufficient hold or power upon its 
prey, loosened itself from the stones and quickly transferred its 
feelers or arms around the diver's legs and body. In this posi- 
tion Mr. Smale thought the best thing for him to do was to get 
up on deck as soon as possible, and he quickly made tracks for 
the ladder which reaches from the deck of the punt to the bot- 
tom of the river. The diver was certainly a curious-looking 
object when he came up. This huge, ugly-looking thing ap- 
peared to be entangled all over him, holding him in a firm em- 
brace. However, Mr. Smale's fellow-workmen were not long in 
freeing him from the unfriendly hug of his sub- marine compan- 
ion. The body portion of the octopus was only about the size 
of a large soup plate, with eyes in its head like those of a sheep, 
but it possessed nine arms, each about four feet in length, at 
the butt as thick as a man's wrist, tapering off at the end to 



134 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

as fine a point as that of a pen-knife; thus it could spread 
over an area of nine feet in diameter. All the way along the 
underneath part of each feeler are suckers every quarter of an 
inch, giving it immense power. 



Abducted by an Orang-Outang. 

Numerous stoiies have been told of women being abducted 
by orang-outangs, carried off to their wooded retreats, and treated 
with the utmost deference and admiration. Incredulous persons 
have questioned these stories, but here is one that cannot be'' 
doubted, for we have it on the authority of a grave and dignified 
Professor, — no less a personage than Prof. Austin, of Cambridge. 

In 1864 a young fellow by the name of Tuba was missing from 
one of the Bornean villages. His people began to fear that 
some terrible accident had befallen him, and concluded to ferret 
out the mystery. 

Having armed themselves, they accordingly started out and 
searched through the jungle for four days without finding any 
trace of the lost. On the fifth day they came to the Sakarang 
River, where every one of them went in bathing. They went 
down the river a short distance, when one of the number fortu- 
nately discovered some clothing on the nearest bank, which, on 
examination, proved to be that of their missing friend. Close 
beside it lay the sumpitan, or blow-pipe, and the short sword 
which he always carried with him. 

A little later the party heard a voice, and after dressing they 
set out in search. They followed a narrow ravine whch led back 
from the river, scanning every nook and hole, searching under 
coverts of leaves and dead, fallen branches, but in vain. They 
were on the point of retracing their steps when they again heard 
the voice. 

It was the voice of Tuba, and, strange as it may appear, he 
was soon discovered high in a tree naked, and a large orang- 
outang was his companion. A rifle-shot soon brought her to the 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 135 

ground, where they finished her with knives, Then the young 
man came down and told the story of his singular adventure. 

He had been out hunting, he said, and late in the afternoon 
had gone into the water of the Sakarang to bathe. On return- 
ing to the bank to dress, he was seized by the arms by an orang- 
outang, who made him follow her into the ravine. They arrived 
at the foot of a tall tree, which the youth was forced to ascend 
until he had reached the animal's nest, where he found himself a 
prisoner in comfortable lodgings. Day after day he remained 
there, the orang-outang graciously supplying him with fresh fruit 
and vegetables, and even bringing him water in a cocoa-nut. 

When I first heard this story I very naturally refused to believe 
it. But a more searching investigation proved conclusively that 
the facts of the case were indisputable and the attendiug cir- 
cumstances corroborative in full. This incident has fully estab- 
lished in my mind the convicton that abductions by orang-outangs 
have taken place, — a conviction which is also shared by St. John, 
the author of a very readable book on Bornean travels. 



A Remarkable Story of a Hunter. 

Capt. Gilmore relates, in his late record of travel in South 
Africa, a remarkable story of the prowess of a hunter, who, less 
known than Gordon Cumming rivaled him in courage and skill. 
Mr. Finnety, the hero of the tale, was one day traveling over the 
uncultivated plains near Bamauwath, riding one horse and 
leading another. He had watered his horses at a pool, or sley, 
as it is there called, and, passing on a little way beyond, "Two 
lions sprang from the bush on either side of the road, each seiz- 
ing a 'horse. The mount that he was on fell in a moment, and 
shot him over its head ; but the hunter was on his feet in a trivet. 
With the right barrel he killed the assailant of the horse he was 
riding, with the left the brute that attacked the led horse. So 
quickly was the whole done that neither of the nags was in- 
jured. " 



136 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

Another exploit, told of the same hunter, is less brilliant, yet 
attests his singular coolness and accuracy of aim. As night 
closed in he shot a large white rhinoceros, and left the game to 
be attended to in the morning: 

At break of day he started alone to find his quarry, and, after 
going a mile or so, found it dead, with three lions around it. — 
Mr. Finnety strolled up within a short distance of them, and 
killed the trio, — each requiring only a single bullet. Soon after- 
wards, having discovered an elephant-spoor, he followed it up, 
and after noon overtook the herd and bowled over a couple of 
tuskers. Retracing his steps to gain his wagon, he had to pass 
by the dead rhinoceros, and, when doing so, found two more 
lions beside the dead carcass. These he also killed. In the 
morning Mr. Finnety went out with his people to secure the 
ivory of the elephants slain the day before. On their route they 
passed a pool in a dry river bed, and by it were two lions. He 
left his people, and, unsupported, walked up to them and killed 
them right and left. Thus seven lions fell before his gun in little 
over twenty- four hours. 



A Snake Battle. 



The big black snake is the bitter enemy of the rattlesnake. 
When they meet, a fight takes place, and the black snake gener- 
ally conquers. A gentleman thus describes a combat which he 
saw between two of these snakes: "In the middle of the road 
lay an ordinary black snake and quite a large rattle-snake eye- 
ing one another fiercely, and in the attitude of instant attack. 
I stood motionless to see the battle take place; but I waited 
long, and still the combatants did not move. At length, tired 
of watching, I slightly shook the bar in the fence, which caused 
the rattle-snake to look away from its opponent to me. Instant- 
ly the black snake sprang on the other, twisted itself tightly 
around its body, and glided off, and there lay the rattle-snake 
dead. The victim, we all know, was a powerful foe, the victor 
as harmless a snake as there is in the land. " 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 137 

Terrible Encounter with Two Vipers in a Dark Room. 

A terrible calamity befel Dr. Palhamous and his accomplished 
daughter Eleanor, at Williamsburg, Pa., in September 1878. It 
seems that two tramps captured a pair of enormous reptiles, 
which the Doctor pronounced to be of that deadly species 
'known as "blowing viper." The Doctor having a desire to con- 
tribute something that would commend itself from this district, 
purchased the reptiles, intending to forward them to the Zoolo- 
gical Garden in Philadelphia. Biding their transportation the 
snakes were placed in a large glass jar, the top being carefully 
secured by a covering of wire gauze. The jar was then placed 
on an elevated bracket in a remote corner of the doctor's office. 
One evening the doctor and his daughter were returning from a 
visit to the country, and, the doctor having occasion to make up 
a prescription, they both entered his office, the doctor lighting a 
lamp. And now comes the terrible denouement. A large owl 
swept in through the transom above the door, and flew with the 
speed of an arrow against the lamp, knocking it over and scat- 
tering the oil and broken glass in every direction. The bird 
seemed frantic, flying in every direction, while a general crash- 
ing of bottles and glasses was heard on every side. Meantime 
the doctor had lit another match, but just in time to receive his 
daughter, who sprang, with a wild cry, to his arms. In the dark- 
ness he gathered his darling in his arms, and in a moment 
realized the situation. The owl had dislodged the jar from the 
bracket, and the vipers were at large. Speedily he groped his 
way, calling loudly for help, which, the hour being late, was 
slow to put in an appearance. They seemed slow, but scarcely 
five minutes elapsed until full a dozen ladies and brave men 
were on the spot. No living hand can indite the horrors of the 
next few minutes. Miss Eleanor, who had been insensible since 
she sprang to her father's arms, was now being cared for by the 
ladies, when one simultaneous shriek almost froze the blood 
and paralyzed each nerve — yet not all ! It was Thomas Lutz's 
hand that seized the glittering reptile by the neck and choked 



138 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

its fearful fangs apart. It had bitten the lady midway between 
the ankle and the knee. She was now carried immediately to 
her home, where every known antidote for poison was adminis- 
tered by her frantic father, but all to no avail. She died at 6 130 
o'clock the next morning. After taking the poor, unfortunate 
young lady home, one of the men, knowing there had been two 
snakes, returned to the office and soon dispatched the other. 
An examination showed its two large fangs missing. This led 
to the conjecture that possibly the Doctor had been bitten. A 
hasty return and close examination resulted in finding the fangs 
in the thick leathers of the Doctor's boots, who, being so alarmed 
for his daughter, had not the slightest knowledge of being struck. 
The corpse of the young lady was swollen to enormous dimen- 
sions, while her complexion was in harmony with the spots and 
general coloring of the snake. The larger of the snakes measured 
four and a half feet; the smaller, four feet. They were pro- 
nounced the largest of the species. It was the shorter one of 
the two that bit the young lady. 



How One Apache Indian Stampeded 400 Cattle. 

An instance of what an Apache Indian will do in the way of 
cool daring, when the prize is worth the risk, once occurred on a 
ranch in Arizona. The owner of the ranch was an American. 
To guard against the Apaches he had built a blockhouse, and, 
adjoining it, a courtyard and corral, surrounded by an adobe 
wall eight feet high and two feet thick. In the corral the herd 
was nightly secured. He had a contract to feed and guard four 
hundred head of beef cattle belonging to the United States fort, 
some thirty miles away. More than one attempt had been made 
by the Apaches to capture the herd while feeding two or three 
miles away from the blockhouse. But the vigilant herdsman 
had driven the cattle at a galop into the corral before the Indians 
could "stampede" them. One night there came a fearful storm. 
A solitary Apache, unarmed, and with nothing but a blanket to 
protect him from the cold rain, climbed over the corral wall; 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 139 

crouching in the corner, he waited for day. Early in the morn- 
ing, the storm having passed away, eight herdsmen, mounted and 
armed, waited at the corral's gate for the herd to be turned out. 
The gate was opened. The stock poured out. Suddenly up 
sprang the Apache ; vaulting on the nearest horse, he clutched 
his mane with one hand, while with the other he waved his red 
blanket and yelled like a demon. In an instant every hoof made 
a rush and the stampede began. The horse, frightened, darted 
into the midst of the flying cattle. As in a frenzy they went 
through the gateway, the Apache clasped his arms around the 
horse's neck, and throwing his body on one side of the maddened 
animal, disappeared from view. A thousand men ranged in col- 
umn could not stop that rush of the crazed herd down that val- 
ley. The herdsmen fired a volley which wounded and killed 
some of the cattle. Two bands of Apaches, darting out from 
opposite sides of the valley, closed up from behind the herd. 
Four hundred head of cattle were thus captured and run off by 
the daring and cunning of one Apache. 



Mark Twain's Great Frog Story. 

In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote 
me from the East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon 
Wheeler, and inquired after my friend's friend, Leonidas W. 
Smiley, as requested to do, and I hereunto append the result. — 
I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth ; 
that my friend never knew such a personage; and that he only 
conjectured that if I asked old Wheeler about him it would re- 
mind him of his infamous Jim Smiley, and he would go to work 
and bore me to death with some exasperating reminiscence of 
him as long and as tedious as it should be useless to me. If that 
was the design, it succeeded. 

I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room 
stove of the dilapidated tavern in the decayed mining camp of 
Angel's, and I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had 
an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his 



Ho ENTERTAINING Animals. 

tranquil countenance. He roused up, and gave me good-day. 
I told him a friend of mine had commissioned me to make some 
inquiries about a cherished companion of his boyhood named 
Leonidas W. Smiley, — Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, a young minis- 
ter of the Gospel, who he had heard was at one time a resident 
of Angel's camp. I added that if Mr. Wheeler could tell me 
anything about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel un- 
der many obligations to him. 

Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me 
there with his chair, and then sat down and reeled off the monot- 
onous narrative which follows this paragraph. He never smiled, 
he never frowned, he never changed his voice from the gentle- 
flowing key to which he tuned his initial sentence, he never 
betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm; but all through 
the interminable narrative there ran a vein of impressive earnest- 
ness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that, so far from 
his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funny about 
his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and ad- 
mired its two heroes as men of transcendant genius in finesse. 
I let him go on in his own way, and never interrupted him once. 

There was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley, in 
the winter of '49 — or may be it was the spring of '50 — I don't 
recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was 
one or the other is because I remember the big flume warn't 
finished when he first come to the camp ; but any way, he was 
the curiosest man, about, always betting on anything that 
turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the 
other side; and if he couldn't he'd change sides-. Any way that 
suited the other man would suit him — any way so's he got a bet, 
he was satisfied. 

Well, this-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken-cocks, and 
tom-cats, and all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and 
you couldn't fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. 
He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he 
cal'lated to educate him : and so he never done nothing for three 
months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. — 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 141 

And you bet you he did learn him, too. He'd give him a little 
punch behind, and the next minute you see that frog whirling in 
the air like a doughnut — see him turn one summerset, or may be 
a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and 
all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of ketch- 
ing flies, 'an kep him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly 
every time as fur as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog 
wanted was education, and he could do almost anything — and I 
believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here 
on this floor — Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog — sing out, 
"Flies, Dan'l, flies!" and quicker'n you could wink he'd spring 
straight up and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down 
on the floor agin as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching 
the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he 
hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might do. — 
You never see a frog so modest and straightfor' ard as he was, for 
all he was so gifted. And when it come to fair and square jump- 
ing on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one 
straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see. Jumping on 
a dead level was his strongest suit, you understand; and when it 
come to that, Smiley would ante up the money on him as long 
as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and 
well he might be, for fellers that had traveled and been every- 
wheres, all said he laid over any frog that ever they see. 

Well, Smiley kep' the beast in a little lattice box, and he used 
to fetch him down town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day 
a feller — a stranger in the camp, he was — come across him with 
his box, and says : 

"What might it be that you've got in the box?" 

"And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like, "It might be a parrot, 
or it might be a canary, maybe, but it ain't — its only just a 
frog. " 

And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it 
round this way and that, and says, "H'm — so 'tis. Well, what's 
he good for?" 

"Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, "he's good enough for 



142 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

one thing, I should judge — he can outjump any frog in Calaveras 
county. " 

The feller took the box again, and took another long, partic- 
ular look, and give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, 
"Well," says he, "I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any 
better'n any other frog. " 

"Maybe you don't," Smiley says. "Maybe you understand 
frogs, and maybe you don't understand 'em; maybe youv'e had 
experience, and maybe you ain't only an amature, as it were. — 
Anyways, Iv'e got my opinion, and I'll resk forty dollars that he 
can outjump any frog in Calaveras county. " 

And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad-like, 
"Well, I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got no frog; but if I 
had a frog, I'd bet you. " 

And then Smiley says, "That's all right — that's all right — if 
you'll hold my box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog. " And 
so the feller took the box, and put up his forty dollars along with 
Smiley's, and set down to wait. 

So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself, 
and then he got the frog out and prised his mouth open and took 
a teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot — filled him pretty 
near up to his chin — and set him on the floor. Smiley he went 
to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, 
and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and give him 
to this feller, and says : 

"Now, if you'r'e ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his 
fore-paws just even with DanTs, and I'll give the word. " Then 
he says, "One — two — three — git!" and him and the feller 
touched up the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped off 
lively, but Dan'l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders — so — 
like a Frenchman, but it warn't no use — he couldn't budge; he 
was planted as solid as a Church, and he couldn't no more stir 
than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, 
and he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the 
matter was, of course. 

The feller took the money and started away; and when he 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 143 

was going out at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his 
shoulder — so — at Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate, " Well, " 
he says, /don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n 
any other frog. " 

Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l 
along time, and at last he says, "I do wonder what in the nation 
that frog throw'd off for — I wonder if there ain't something the 
matter with him — he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow. " — 
And ketched Dan'l by the nap of the neck, and hefted him, and 
says "Why, blame my cats if he don't weigh five pound!" and 
turned him upside down, and he belched out a double handful of 
shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man 
— he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he nev- 
er ketched him. And " 

[Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front 
yard, and got up to see what was wanted.] And turning to me 
as he moved away, he said, "Just set where you are, stranger, 
and rest easy — I ain't going to he gone a second. " 

But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the 
history of the enterterprising vagabond Jim Smiley would be 
likely to afford me much information concerning the Rev. Leon- 
idas W. Smiley, and so I started away. 



An Affectionate Goose. 

In the public gardens at Hah'fax, there is an eccentric goose 
that seems to manifest a genuine affection. Whenever a certain 
old gentleman, whose name we do not know, approaches the 
pond and calls "Bobby," the goose will leave the pond and sit 
beside him, and when he leaves to go home, will follow close at 
his feet, like a dog, to the gate, and sometimes into the street, 
when it has to be forcibly put back, to its manifest disgust, for it 
goes off to its native element twisting its tail with indignation, 
and giving vent to sundry discordant squeaks, The old gentle- 
man says he has never fed it, or petted it in any way, which 
makes it more remarkable; but we are told by a frequenter of the 



144 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

gardens that about two or three years ago a man used to come 
there and feed this identical goose regularly, so we are inclined 
to think that it is a case of mistaken identity on the part of his 
gooseship. Anyway, it is an interesting question for ornitholo- 
gists to solve, whether geese (supposed to be the most stupid 
of birds) have memory and can experience the sensation of 
gratitude. 



Two Snakes Killing a Raccoon. 

A fishing party on the banks of Shoal Creek, Jasper County, 
Missouri, heard a noise in the underbrush, and, going the direc- 
tion of the sounds, saw a large coon and two large black snakes 
in deadly combat, the former getting the worst of the fight. — 
One of the reptiles was coiled around the coon's body, and 
whenever it attempted to use its teeth the other snake struck at 
its eyes. It attempted retreat, but the snake which encircled it 
dropped a coil, and as quick a thought took a "half-hitch" around 
a small sapling. It tried hard to pull loose, and while it's energies 
were bent in that direction, the other snake took a coil around 
the coon's neck, and in a few minutes choked the life out of it. 
The spectators, who had been dumb witnesses of the struggle, 
advanced and killed the victors. One measured nine feet and 
the other seven feet six inches. 



Swallow-Love. 



I, along, with several onlookers, says a friend, recently, 
observed a swallow enter an exhaust-pipe in the roof of one of 
the Grand Trunk workshops, evidently for the purpose of build- 
ing her nest in it. Unfortunately for her, she could not get out 
again ; and her partner entered the pipe also, and backed out 
again with a feather in his beak. Three times did he ineffectu- 
ally attempt to rescue his mate. When work was resumed in 
the afternoon, the swallow was blown out of the pipe by the 
steam, and lay dead on the roof of the building, the survivor 
standing by and showing signs of deep distress. 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 145 

Ant-Wars in South Africa. 

Bisbop Colenso writes from Maritzburg: "I noticed one 
morning that along the bottom of the front wall of my house, 
on the veranda, there lay a quantity of reddish brown powder; 
there was enough to fill a coffee-cup. On looking closer I saw 
that it was made up of small and larger fragments which 
glistened, and on inspecting some in my hand they turned out to 
be the heads, legs, trunks, etc., of countless ants. A number of 
these animals were still on the wall above, and my attention 
being now arrested I watched them and saw that they were 
contributing to the carnage beneath. 

"The species of ant is a small, comparatively harmless * one, 
the chief sin of which is that it makes its way to every species 
of food and swarms on it. As is usual with ants, the general 
body of insects is accompanied by larger individuals, which are 
provided with heads and jaws quite disproportionate to their 
bodies, and with these jaws they do all the cutting up. Among 
the ants on the wall there was a large sprinkling of these 'soldier 
ants,' and the whole community seemed bent on destroying 
them. The proportion o r heavy-jawed to ordinary ants was 
about one to ten. I saw a group of little ones fastening on to a 
big ant, which made desperate efforts to release itself. At first 
the big one bit several little ones in two, and the parts dropped 
down from the wall; but after a while the little ones severed all 
the legs of the big one, and finally got on his back and cut him 
in two. The group then dropped down to swell the mass below. 
Similar scenes were enacted elsewhere on the wall. 

"The commencement of one combat was as follows: A big 
ant walked along till it met another big one, and the two shook 
antennae. Just then a little one seized hold of a hind leg of one 
of these big ones. Neither took any notice, but continued a 
rapid conversation. Suddenly other small ones came up, when 
the big one whose leg was grabbed, turned furiously on the 
little one and seized him him by the middle. This could not 
be done until the big one had doubled himself up; as soon 
10 



146 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

as he had hold of his small antagonist he lifted him in the air 
and snipped him in two. Meanwhile all the big one's legs had 
been seized by the little ones, and the party seemed to turn 
over and over, little bits tumbling down, now a leg, now a half 
ant, till the big one was vanquished. The ant is most assured- 
ly subject to passion. The way in which the big ant turned on 
the little one' was singularly indicative of rage. The determined 
manner in which he laid hold of the little one was quite human. 
If I had had a magnifying glass, the scene would have been 
really exciting. " 



A Canary Which Sings "A Life on the Ocean Wave." 

J. G. Christopher, of Minneapolis, Minn., is the possessor of a 
canary bird, the voice of which has been developed in a peculi- 
arly painstaken manner, so that now this "educated" songster 
can successfully render the well-known air, "A Life on the 
Ocean Wave." The bird will commence to warble like any 
other of these pets, and after uttering a few notes will immedi- 
ately strike into the tune, and when its voice has attained full 
height the above tune will be sung entire, and in a manner that 
sounds singularly melodious and attractive, literally setting to 
note its natural vocal powers. This was only achieved after the 
most dilligent and patient attention. As soon as the bird was old 
enough to pick up a living it was put in a room apart from a'.l 
others, and a music-box also placed in the apartment and kept 
perpetually going, so that this singular pupil had nothing to learn 
from but that. After four months of such apprentice-ship, the 
owner was rewarded by hearing his little favorite render "A Life 
on the Ocean Wave" as naturally and perfectly as if that was the 
song of its ancestors. 



A Deer That Went Over Niagara Falls. 

About the year 1826 to 1830 there lived on the "Sander's 
Settlement Road, " about four miles from the Falls, a family by 
the name of Straw, who had captured, in the then dense forest 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 147 

of the neighborhood, a young fawn, which was domesticated, and 
became so much attached to its captors that it would follow the 
children into the house, and played with them like a dog. In 
time it became so much attached to the team and its driver that 
it would follow wherever they went. 

One day a grist was taken to the mill at the Falls to be 
ground, and the deer, as usual, followed to keep company. As 
the mill was approached a hound gave the deer a chase, which, 
for safety, leaped the raceway and sought an asylum below the 
mill, but was instantly swept by the rushing waters down and 
over the American Falls. Soon it was discovered below by 
some persons who had watched the cruel chase, and seen to 
swim ashore at the Ferry landing, and it actually climbed out 
upon the rocks, where, from some injury it had received from 
the fall, or from fright, it soon perished. 



An Arab's Love for His Horse. 

When Napoleon was in Egypt he wished to purchase of a 
poor Arab of the desert, a beautiful horse, with the intention of 
sending him to France as a present. 

The Arab pressed by want, hesitated a long time, but at length 
consented on receiving a large sum of money in payment for the 
animal. Napoleon at once agreed to pay the sum named and 
requested the Arab to bring his horse. 

The man, so indigent as to possess only a miserable rag as a 
covering for his body, arrived with his magnificent courser; he 
dismounted, and looking first at the gold, and then steadfastly at 
his horse, heaved a deep sigh. 

"To whom is it, " he exclaimed, "that I am going to yield thee 
up? To Empereur ! who will tie thee up close; who will lead 
thee, who will trot thee, who will render thee miserable? Re- 
turn with me, my beauty! my jewel! and rejoice the hearts of 
my children ! " As he pronounced the last words he sprang upon 
his back and was out of sight in a moment. 



148 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

The Better Dog of the Two. 

A strange scene occurred the other day at Slerck on the Mo- 
selle. Herr Schmidt had a dog which he wished to get rid of. 
Rowing out into the middle of the river, he fastened a stone 
round the dog's head and threw him into the water. The animal 
sank at once; but during his struggles the rope slipped off the 
stone, and he again rose to the surface and tried to get back 
into the boat. His master, however, continued to push him 
back, but as the dog persevered, he lost his patience, and, stri- 
king at him with his oar, lost his balance and fell into the water 
himself. He was unable to swim, but the dog, seizing him by 
his coat, succeeded in bringing him to land, after having been 
repeatedly washed away by the current. The dog's life was saved, 
we are happy to say. 



A Hunter's "Bear Story!" 

One day, a long time ago, about the time when Jackson ran 
for President the first time, perhaps, I was one day hunting 
upon the ridge between Meadow Run and Cucumber Run, which 
tumbles off the rocks just across there. 

I had known for some time by the signs that there was a nest 
of cub bears somewhere in the neighborhood, so on that day I 
concluded that I would put in my time finding them, as a party 
up in Uniontown wanted a pair to send over to Baltimore to a 
friend who was fond of outlandish pets. 

You see that it was along about the first of September, and 
pretty warm at that, and after walking up and down the ravines, 
I began to get pretty tired. I was not so heavy then as I am 
now, and did not weigh more than a couple of hundred pounds. 
As I said, I was a little tired, and so on the top of the ridge I 
sat down by the side of a smooth chestnut stump about twelve 
or fourteen feet high. I hadn't sat there more than a minute 
until I heard something inside the stump, and soon made out 
that it was a couple of the cub bears playing with one another. 

I looked on all sides of the stump to find an opening, but 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 149 

none was to be seen. Then I happened to notice the marks of 
claws up the side of the stump, and I understood it. The hole 
went in at the top. I set my gun against a bush, up-ended the 
branch of a tree, and was soon at the top of the stump, looking 
in at the two cubs, which were about the size of full-grown 
rat-dogs. 

I was so excited that I jumped down into the stump and 
grabbed the cubs. They at first began to squeal, and then 
turned on me for fight. But they were small enough to handle, 
and in a minute or two I had their mouths tied so they could 
not bite, and their feet fastened so they could not scratch. 

I knew that the old bear would be along pretty soon and 
make it hot for me if she found me in the nest, so I swung the 
youngsters into my buckskin belt preparatory to getting out. 

Get out? Did I get out? Land of love! it makes me shiver 
to think of it yet. I could no more get out of that stump than 
I could fly. The hollow was bell-shaped, larger at the bottom 
than at the top — so large, in fact, that I could not put my back 
against one side and my feet and hands against the other and 
crawl up, as rabbits and other animals climb up inside of hol- 
low trees. 

In no way could I get up a foot. There were no sticks inside 
to help me up, and I made up my mind I had to die certain. — 
About the time I came to this conclusion I heard the old bear 
climbing up the outside of the stump. With only my hunting 
knife as a means of defense, and in such close quarters, you may 
possibly imagine the state of my feelings. 

The old bear was not more than half a minute, at the outside, 
climbing up the stump, but it seemed like a month, at least. I 
thought of all my sins a dozen times, at least. At last she reached 
the top, but she didn't seem to suspect my presence at all, as she 
deliberately turned round and began slowly descending, tail fore- 
most. 

I felt as though my last hour had come, and began to think 
seriously about lying down and let the bear kill me, so as to get 
out of my misery as quickly as possible. Suddenly an idea 



150 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

struck me, and despair gave way to hope. I drew out my hunt- 
ing knife and stood on tip toe. When the bear was about seven 
feet from the bottom of the hollow I fastened on her tail with my 
left hand with a vise-like grip, and with my right drove my hunt- 
ing knife to the hilt into her haunch, and at the same time yel- 
ling like a whole tribe of Indians. 

"What did she do?" chorused the whole crowd, who had been 
holding their breath ! 

What did she do? Well, you should have seen the perform- 
ance. She didn't stop to reflect a moment, but shot out at the 
top of the stump like a bullet out of a gun. A hair's breadth to 
the minute. I held on until we struck the ground, some thirty 
feet from the stump. Then the old bear went like lightning into 
the brush, and was out of sight in half a second. I was a little 
bruised by the fall, but that was all. I took the cubs to Union- 
town the next day, and on account of the adventure, I got five 
dollars apiece for them, and in those times five dollars was as 
good as fifty dollars now. 



Canine Sagacity. 



Col. Hamilton Smith in his Cyclopaedia of natural History 
mentions a curious instance of fidelity and sagacity in a dog. He 
states that in the neighborhood of Cupar there lived two dogs, 
mortal enemies to each other, and who always fought desperate- 
ly when they met. Capt. R was master of one of them, 

and the other belonged to a neighboring farmer. Capt. R 's 

dog was in the habit of going for messages, bringing butcher's 
meat and other articles from Cupar. 

One day, while returning charged with a basket containing 
some pieces of mutton, he was attacked by some curs of the 
town, who, no doubt, thought the prize worth contending for. — 
The assault was fierce, and of some duration; but the messenger, 
after doing his utmost, was at last overpowered and compelled 
to yield up the basket, though not before he had secured a part 
of its contents. The piece saved from the wreck he ran off with 



Animals. ANECDOTES. . 151 

at full speed, to the quarters of his old enemy, at whose feet he 
laid it down, stretching himself beside it till he had eaten it up. A 
few sniffs, a few whispers in the ear and other dog-like courtesies 
were exchanged ; after which they both set off together for Cupar, 
where they worried almost every dog in the town ; and what is 
more remarkable, they never afterwards quarrelled, but were 
always on friendly terms. 



A Self-Denying Cat. 

A cat in possesion of a family once showed great self-denial 
in the following manner : She was a terrible eater of small birds, 
chickens, etc., and therefore, when on one occasion she was 
found to have passed the night in the aviary of doves, great was 
the alarm. However, on inspection, not a dove was missing; and 
though she was asleep in an inner cage, close to a nest of young 
doves, she had not touched a feather. What made her conduct 
the more remarkable was the fact that on being released she ate 
ravenously. 



A Dog that Knew his Own Property. 

The following is authenticated by a contributor to Mr. Wood's 
"Man and Beast:" "Property of every description requires a 
certain amount of supervision, whether 'real or personal,' as the 
lawyers say, and has its attendant anxieties as well as its attend- 
ant pleasures; but I never saw any animal so impressed with 
the responsibility as our present little dog appears to be. 

"Having been in our possession all his little life-time, the items 
of his personal property have gradually increased. At first he 
occupied the basket of his predecessor, which was taken up-stairs 
for him at night. After some time, another basket was purchased 
for the drawing-room, the old one retaining its place up-stairs. — 
New things are always favorites with children, and this at first 
was supposed to be the case with our little animal : he would 
not occupy the old basket at r>ight, so the new one was brought 
tip at night and placed beside it. This was continued for a short 



152 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

time: when the old one was taken down, the new one only 
remained up-stairs. This was not the right thing to do; he then 
refused to occupy the new one. 

"I must confess to humoring his little peculiarities, so I 
fetched the old basket up, leaving both in the room. This was 
quite what he wanted, and gave evident satisfaction; he jumped 
into one, which he arranged comfortably, then performed the 
same operation in the other, and finally occupied both baskets 
at intervals during the night. He will now never compose him- 
self at night until both baskets are in the room. One night I 
purposely removed his dish of water; he missed it, sat up beg- 
ging on the spot it always occupied, and great was his delight on 
its restoration, although he had no wish to drink. I have given him 
duplicate property, and placed his baskets, water-dishes, etc., at 
different parts of the room ; he never fails to go round and in- 
spect his property before fixing himself for the night, and most 
amusing it is to witness his anxiety until he has the whole of his 
goods under his protection. " 



A Very Polite Horse. 

The following account of a horse is by a clergyman : — "A 
neighbor possessed of a young foal, which, with its mother, used 
to pass our house daily, early in the morning, during our break- 
fast time, and had a habit of straying upon a piece of waste ground 
which then occupied the front, but has since been inclosed and 
formed into a front garden. My daughter, who is extremely 
partial to horses, used to run out and offer the little animal a 
piece of bread. 

"This went on regularly, until at last, when he was between 
two and three years old, he would not wait for the bread, but 
used to go to the door, plant his fore feet on the steps, so as to 
gain sufficient elevation, and then lift the knocker with his nose, 
afterward waiting for his morsel. It is evident the horse had seen 
the knocker used; had noted the result and had followed the 
example, using, of course, his nose in lieu of a hand. 




On Guard. 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 153 

"Deko." 

A Detroit paper gives the following interesting account of a 
remarkable dog: 

The propeller Majne, of the Northern Transit Company, 
called at this port Friday, bound down on her way from Chica- 
go to Ogdensburg, and among the through passengers was Mrs. 

W. J. R. , and Hetty, her seven-year old daughter, who 

were going to their home in Albany, N. Y. 

While the boat was moored at the Northern Transit Compa- 
ny's wharf at the foot of Third street, the little girl engaged in a 
play spell with "Deko," a large Newfoundland dog, who is a fix- 
ture at the wharf, and as well known in the vicinity as any of the 
many boats which call there. They were having a glorious time 
when the girl ran along the wharf towards the stern of the boat 
and with her head partly turned to look at the dog she ran head- 
long off the wharf into the water. "Deko" stopped an instant as 
though shocked, then sprang into the water near to where the 
girl was floating supported by her dress and cloak and about ten 
feet from the wharf. Taking one of her shoulders in his huge 
mouth the noble dog supported her until a small boat put out 
and she was rescued from her perilous position. 

"Deko" thus added another event to his already eventful life, 
he being a most remarkable dog. Marvelous stories are told of 
his sagacity. Two years ago he was an inmate, a sort of night- 
watch, in the Northfield (Minn.) Bank, and was on duty the night 
the notorious Younger Brothers robbed that institution. He had 
a fight with Charles Younger at the time, and to this day carries 
a broken tail, caused by a bullet from Younger's revolver, Since 
his residence in Detroit, "Deko" has learned the sound of vari- 
ous propeller whistles, and instantly, when a Northern Transit 
boat signals, the dog jumps, and, if in the office, barks furiously 
to be let out. If the boat arrives late at night, when the clerks 
have all gone to their homes, "Deko" starts for the Cass House, 
where one of the clerks boards, and before the boat touches the 
wharf has some one who can talk on hand to receive the Captain. 
As one of the Captains says: "If 'Deko' could only talk, he 



154 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

could run the office at night without help. " As soon as a boat is 
made fast to the wharf, "Deko" steers for the door of the cook- 
room, and will not leave until he receives a meal, and, after 
eating, he stands guard at the gangway until all the freight is 
moved and the order is heard to haul in. Then he jumps ashore 
to wait for the next craft. 



A Cold Water Horse. 

The pump was in a corner of the horse box in which the horse 
was accustomed to be shut for the night, and the coachman used 
to be puzzled at the fact that when he came in. the morning the 
end of the stable was always an inch or so deep in water. At last 
he suspected that the horse might have been the delinquent, and 
so fastened him up without giving him any water, and watched 
him unobserved when let loose in the morning. The animal 
went at once to the pump, and took the handle in his teeth, 
and worked it up and down, and, when the water was in full 
flow, placed his mouth under the spout to drink. He could not 
endure being watched while pumping, and, if he saw any one ob- 
serving him, would rush at him with open mouth in order to 
scare him way. 



Bird Charity---A Little Wren Adopts Four Orphan 
Robins. 

Last summer a pair of Robin Red Breasts built their nest in 
the vicinity of a fashionable country boarding house. In due 
time the heads of four young robins were observed by some of 
the boarders peering above the sides of the nest, when some 
thoughtless boys passing that way shot both the parent birds and 
left the young ones to perish. 

The ladies and gentlemen, moved to pity by the poor helpless 
young birds were devising plans for relief when a little brown 
wren flew to the nest, surveyed the unfortunate state of things 
for a moment, then disappeared. In a few minutes it returned 
bearing food of some kind to the starving robins, 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 155 

Much surprised at this the human sympathizers resolved to 
await Further developements before proceeding to put their plans 
of relief into operation and were delighted to find that the wren 
had in real good earnest assumed the care of that orphan family. 
With untiring energy it hunted worms and food of such kind as 
was suited to the wants and tastes of its proteges, and continued 
its kindly offices until the birds were full fledged and were en- 
abled to take care of themselves. Strange as this may appear, 
we have it from the most reliable authority. 



A Dog's Appreciation of Money. 

A Quincy, Ills, journal tells this story: "A few evenings since, 
while a number of persons were chatting in a drug store, a gen- 
gentleman came in, followed by a small dog. While the master 
was procuring some medicine the dog walked around the store- 
room, and finally picked up something and ran to one of the 
gentlemen and attracted attention by scratching his clothing. 
The man looked down and noticed that the dog had a piece of 
paper in his mouth, but thought nothing more of it. The dog, 
not satisfied, repeated his apparent appeal, but not with success, 
and then went to his owner, who took the paper and saw it was 
a ten dollar bank note. The dog had found it on the floor, and 
evidently knew that it was valuable. It subsequently transpired 
that the money belonged to Dr. J. T. Wilson, and it was returned 
to him. The dog was rewarded for his sagacity by the present 
of a handsome new collar. " 



A Remarkable Horse. 

Miss Charlotte Thornton of Woodford, Ky., has an old black 
horje which goes straight to the blacksmith-shop and deliberately 
walks in, unattended, every time he loses a shoe. A negro boy 
usually rides him to drive cows to and from the pasture. One day 
this darkey didn't come to time, and the intelligent horse drove 
the cows to the pasture. At another time he went to the pas- 
ture alone and drove the cows home. 



156 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

How a Dog Won a Wager Under Difficulties. 
"One day, when Dumont, a tradesman of Rue St. Dennis, 
was walking in the Boulevard St. Antoine with a friend, he 
offered to lay a wager with the latter, that if he were to hide a 
silver six-livre piece in the dust, his dog would discover and 
bring it to him. The wager was accepted, and the piece of mon- 
ey secreted, after being carefully marked. When the two had 
proceeded some distance from the spot, M. Dumont called to his 
dog that he had lost something, and ordered him to seek it. — 
Caniche immediately turned back, and his master and his com- 
panion pursued their walk to the Rue St. Dennis. Meanwhile a 
traveler, who happened to be just then returning in a small 
chaise from Vincennes, perceived the piece of money, which his 
horse had kicked from its hiding-place; he alighted, took it up, 
and drove to his inn, in the Rue Pont aux-Choux. Caniche had 
just reached the spot in search of the lost piece when the stran- 
ger picked it up. He followed the chaise, went to the inn, and 
stuck close to the traveler. Having scented out the coin which 
he had been ordered to bring back, in the pocket of the latter, 
he leaped up incessantly at and about him. The traveler, sup- 
posing him to be feme dog that had been lost or left behind by 
his master, regarded his different movements as marks of fond- 
ness; and as the animal was handsome, he determined to keep 
him. He gave him a good supper, and on retiring to bed took 
him with him to his chamber. No sooner had he pulled off his 
breeches, than they were seized by the dog; the owner con- 
ceiving that he wanted to play with them took them away again. 
The animal began to bark at the door, which the traveler opened, 
under the idea that the dog wanted to go out. Caniche snatched 
up the breeches, and away he flew. The traveler posted after 
with his night-cap on, and literally sans culottes. Anxiety for the 
fate of a purse full of gold Napoleons, of forty francs each, 
which was in one of the pockets, gave redoubled velocity to his 
steps. Caniche ran full speed to his master's house, where the 
stranger arrived a moment afterwards, breathless and enraged. 
He accused the dog of robbing him. 'Sir,' said the master, 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 1 5 7 

'My dog is a very faithful creature; and if he has run away with 
your breeches, it is because you have in them money which does 
not belong to you.' The traveler became still more exasperated. 
'Compose yourself, sir,' rejoined the other smiling; 'without 
doubt there is in your purse a six-livre piece, with such and such 
marks, which you have picked up in the Boulevard St. Antoine, 
and which I threw down there with the firm conviction that my 
dog would bring it back again. This is the cause of the robber- 
ry which he has committed upon you.' The stranger's rage now 
changed to astonishment; he delivered the six-livre piece to the 
owner, and could not forbear caressing the dog which gave him 
so much uneasiness, and such an unpleasant chase. 



The Fire Escape Man's Dog "Bill." 

On an alarm of fire Bill barks his loudest, dashes about in 
a frantic manner, till his master and the escape are on their way 
to it. He, of course, is there first, giving the police and the 
crowd to understand that Wood and his fire-escape are coming. 
When the escape is fixed and Wood begins to ascend the ladder, 
Bill runs up the canvass; as soon as a window is opened, Bill 
leaps in and dashes about to find the occupants, loudly barking 
for assistance as soon as he has accomplished his errand of mer- 
cy. His watchfulness and sagacity are never at fault, although 
on more than one occasion he has stood a fair chance of losing 
his life, and has sustained very severe injury. Not long ago a 
collar was presented Bill as a reward for his services; unfortu- 
nately for him, he has since lost this token of public regard — a 
misfortune very much to be regretted. The following verse was 
engraved on the collar : 

' I'm the fire-escape man's dog ; my name is Bill. 
When ' fire' is called I am never still : 
I bark for my master, all danger brave, 
To bring the escape — human life to save.' 

Collared or collarless, Bill is always ready to lend a helping 
bark. 



158 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

A Parrot Tricks a Cat. 

A lady who owns a beautiful parrot allows it the freedom of 
the house. In that house there is also a cat, with which Polly is 
pleased to amuse herself. One day when the cat was lying 
asleep on the rug the parrot began to mew and scream just like 
young kittens when they are hurt. Up jumped the cat and 
rushed in frantic haste to her beloved offspring, and was very 
much astonished to find them all safe and comfortably asleep. — 
She returned to the rug; but as soon as she had curled herself up 
and settled herself comfortably for another nap the parrot re- 
commenced her mews and cries, and again the cat flew to the 
rescue. In this way the mischievous bird managed to dupe the 
cat three different times, a feat which the parrot greatly enjoyed. 



Wonderful Sagacity. 



A gentleman of property, in Ithaca, N. Y., had a mastiff of 
great size, very watchful, and, altogether a fine, intelligent ani- 
mal. Though often let out, to roam about, he was in general 
chained up during the day in a wooden house constructed for 
his comfort and shelter. 

On a certain day, when let out, he was observed to attach him- 
self particularly to his master, and when the servant came to tie him 
up, he clung to his master's feet, showed much anger when they 
attemped to force him away, and altogether was so peculiar in his 
manner, that the gentleman desired him to be left as he was, and 
with him he continued the whole day; and when night came on, 
still he staid with him, and on going toward his bed room the 
dog resolutely and for the first time in his life, went up along 
with him, and rushing into the room took refuge under the bed 
from whence neither blows nor caresses could draw him. 

In the middle of the night a man burst into the room, dagger 
in hand, and attempted to stab the sleeping gentleman; but the 
dog darted at the robber's neck, fastened his fangs in him, and 
so kept him down that his master had time to call for assistance 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 159 

and secure the ruffian, who turned out to be the coachman, and 
who afterwards confessed that seeing his master receive a large 
sum of money, he and the groom conspired together to rob him, 
and they plotted the whole thing leaning over the roof of the dog 
house! This is a remarkable story. 



How Two Goats got out of a Dilemma. 

George Black was an eye witness to the following: At Ardin- 
glass, in Red Bay, near Glenarm, in Ireland, two goats happened 
to be moving towards each other, over a dreadful precipice, on a 
path so narrow that it was impossible for them to pass each 
other, and still less practicable for either to turn round; the least 
attempt to effect the one or the other of these movements, would 
have precipitated them from the rock, which is three or four hun- 
dred feet perpendicular. In this dilemma, they looked at each 
other with great seriousness, for a length of time, as if they were 
deliberating how to extricate themselves from the difficulty; 
which, at length, they contrived to do, by one of them lying 
down prostrate, while the other walked over his body, each af- 
terwards pursuing his own course with perfect composure. 



A Mouse Charmed by a Serpent. 

Some naturalists dispute the existence of this power in the 
serpent, and imagine that fear occasions this self-devotion of its 
prey: while others suppose, that the maternal affection of birds 
induces the old one to present herself to the ravager, with de- 
sign to withdraw his attention from her young; and in her anx- 
iety for their safety, to venture so far, that she can no longer 
recede from the grasp of her enemy. That this is not always 
the case, is proved by an experiment mentioned in the Philo- 
sophical Transactions. "A viper-catcher, who had more than 
sixty living vipers in a chest put a living mouse in among them. 
Now it is well known, that these creatures never feed while in 
confinement, unless it be a female that is with young. One of 
the vipers in this chest happened to be in this situation. None 



160 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

of the others paid any attention to the mouse, but she raised up 
her head a little, and looked furiously at it. The terrified mouse 
stood still for a considerable time, though the viper continued 
rolled up in a spiral form, only raising up her head and looking 
at it, vibrating her tongue at the same time. The mouse at 
length took courage to move, but without running away, only 
walking as if terrified, round and round the viper, squeaking 
frequently as it went, till at length it came before the head of its 
enemy, which was still in an erect posture, with the mouth open. 
The unfortunate mouse, after some time, drew nearer, and at 
last, crept into the vipers mouth, where it was gradually swal- 
lowed, without obliging her to alter her position. " 



How the Elephant Got Out of Difficulties. 

On a large island in the Ganges, opposite Cawnpore, in June 
1873, an event occurred which excited my admiration. With 
three friends I had been riding hard all the afternoon, and, feel- 
ing very tired, we determined to go home on the elephant. 

"We had traveled some way, and were nearing the river, when 
one of us noticed that the ground looked lather unsafe, and 
that the elephant seemed to become uneasy. So we all decided 
to dismount and walk to the river, previously instructing the ma- 
hout to take the elephant by a short circuit, so as to avoid the 
soft ground. The man, however, evidently considered that he 
knew better than we did; and we therefore went straight on, not 
thinking of looking around. 

"We had not proceeded far when we heard the elephant trum- 
peting (a well-known signal of distress or anger,) and on looking 
around saw that the poor beast was in a quicksand, and' 
that the mahout had dismounted and was making the best of 
his way out of reach of the animal. I may here mention that to 
be on an elephant's back or within his reach under such circum- 
stances is certain death: he is sure to take hold of a man and 
place him under his feet, so anxious is he to get something solid 
to stand upon. 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 161 

"We were then about fifty yards from the river and it was 
rapidly getting dark. The elephant was making frantic efforts to 
escape out of his difficulties, and the ground heaved all around 
him. How to help him we did not know; for he was sinking 
deeper and deeper, and go near him we dared not. 

"As good fortune would have it, there happened to be at hand 
a number of large planks which had been left by some villagers. 
We went as near the elephant as we dared, and threw planks 
within his reach. The clever animal seized them in his trunk, 
drew them to him, and laid them one upon the other in front of 
him. When he thought he had enough, with one gigantic effort 
he got his fore legs out of the quick-sand, and in a short time he 
had managed to extricate himself, and was standing safely on the 
planks, though trembling all over. 

"He had still some fifty yards to go before he could reach 
the river, and the intelligent beast never moved a step until he 
got a plank and placed it in front of him. He thus moved on, 
step by step, on successive planks, until he reached the river. — 
The mahout then remounted him, and he crossed the Ganges in 
safety. This was no small relief to our feelings; for the loss of 
the elephant would not only have been a very costly business, 
but the mode of his death would have been inexpressibly 
painful. 

The Sectarian Dog. 

The following curious dog story is vouched for by a paper in 
Montreal : A gentleman owns a dog that has some remarkable 
instincts. On week days he has all the passions and propensi- 
ties of other dogs, but on the Sabbath his peculiarities and 
sentiments come out. He knows when this day comes. He is 
not the same dog as on other days. He indulges in no pastimes, 
encourages no company, and seems to say, in aGtions louder 
than words, "Six days may we play and do all our sport." The 
family are Presbyterians; the dog is a methodist. On Sabbath 
mornings he attends the family to the Presbyterian house of 
worship, and then goes on his solitary and unbroken way to his 



1 62 ENTERTAINING Animals. . 

own church, which is a little farther on. He has a particular 
place up stairs where he sits. No belle or madam of fashion 
who sweeps up the aisle of a popular church and finds a plebe- 
ian in her pew can give a more decided expression of displeas- 
ure than this dog if he finds any one in his pew. He seems to 
attend to the service, and give dogmatic heed to the word spo- 
ken. An example to many professed christians, he may be seen 
on his way to church in foul weather as fair— not a half-day 
hearer either, while his denominational preferences are as well 
known as those of any in the city. 



A Canning Sparrow. 

A Hartford paper tells the following story of an English spar- 
row on the authority of a friend who had it from the gentleman 
who witnessed the occurrence: "This gentleman, who resides in 
New York, had erected, in his back yard, a large box for spar- 
rows' nests. It was divided into three rows, each containing 
four compartments. These were all speedily taken possession 
of by a dozen pairs of sparrows, and the business of making 
nests proceeded amid the customary chippering din of these fus- 
sy and pugnacious feathered colonists. Sitting idly at the window 
one Sunday, watching the birds, the gentleman saw one cock- 
sparrow come flying to the place with a fine, soft white feather in 
his bill. The box was so placed that he could see into the 
compartments, and he saw this bird fix the feather into an incom- 
plete nest, and then fly away. No sooner was he out than a 
female sparrow from the adjoining compartment, who had evi- 
dently seen that proceeding, hopped into her neighbor's house 
and pulled out and carried off the coveted feather. Becoming 
interested, the observer watched the performance expecting to 
see the little thief carry her stolen prize to her own nest; but 
no; she knew a trick worth two of that, and here is where she 
displayed an undeniable reasoning process, aud acted on a clear 
perception of cause and effect, making a prudent use of her 
knowledge of the character and disposition of her plundered 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 163 

neighbor. She flew off with the feather to a neighboring tree, 
where she securely fastened it in an inconspicuous place upon 
and between two twigs, and there left it. Pretty soon the bird 
she had defrauded came back with a straw to add to his nest. — 
Discovering his loss, he came out with an angry chirruping that 
boded no good to the despoiler of his hearth and home, if he 
could only find the rogue. His first demonstration was t,o visit 
his next-door neighbor without any search-warrant. In that 
abode of peace and innocence he found no trace of the stolen 
feather; and as for the actual guilty party, she was hopping inno- 
cently about, and loudly demanding — as far as bird tones could 
be understood by the man at the window — what was meant by 
this ungentlemanly intrusion. The cock-sparrow was evidently 
puzzled. Unable, after a minute search, to find the lost feather, 
he apparently gave it up, and flew away in search of another. 
The thief demurely waited till he got well off, and then flew to 
the tree, secured the stolen feather, and took it in triumph to her 
own nest. 



Dog Drowning a Cat. 

An English paper contains a record of a somewhat curious 
occurrence which took place at Morebattle, a village near Jed- 
burgh, in Roxburghshire. A pup of the collie breed, about four 
months old, belonging to Alexander Woodcock, a shepherd at 
Morebattle Tufts, was observed to watch closely the drowning of 
a cat belonging to its master, in the water of Kale, which runs 
close to the shepherd's door. Woodcock is also possessed of a 
kitten with which this young collie is in the habit of romping. 
Shortly after the drowning of the cat, somehow or other the 
collie, feeling aggravated at the kitten scratching him, lifted 
it in his mouth, walked down to the little wooden bridge that 
spans the water, and quietly dropped the kitten in, just in the 
same way as he had seen his master disposing of the cat, thus 
showing that the drowning scene made a deep, if not a lasting 
impression on the dog's mind. 



1 64 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

The Trained Horse "Porter/' 

Mr. Morris Lewis, of Indianapolis, who raised and trained 
Porter, recently gave an exhibition of the young horse's abilities 
before the directors of the Zological Garden of Cincinnati. — 
There were old, experienced horsemen and showmen present, 
and all united in saying that they had never seen anything in the 
way of a trained horse to compare with 'Porter,' for that is 
the name he answers to. He waltzes, dances a jig, walks on 
his hind feet alone, pretends lameness, pretends sickness, lying 
on his side and groaning dolefully, answers questions by a shake 
of the head, counts off his age with his feet, shows how a horse 
acts when he is restless, shows how he acts when he is tired and 
hungry, shows how he would pitch a bad man off his back, and 
how he would help a pretty girl on, and sits up and smokes a 
pipe. He fetches and carries like a dog, and seems to be almost 
human in his attempts to make himself understood. He is a beau- 
tiful fellow, full of fire and spirit, and now and then gets on his 
ear when he feels he is not master. He has never been publicly 
exhibited, and there is a pressure on Mr. Lewis from showmen 
in all parts of the country. 



A Remarkable Story. 

"The fame of an English dog has been deservedly transmitted 
to posterity, by a monument in basso-relievo, which still remains 
on the chimney-piece of the grand hall at the castle of Montarjis, 
in France. The sculpture, which represents a dog fighting with 
a champion, is explained by the following narrative. Aubri de 
Mondidier, a gentleman of family and fortune, traveling alone 
through the forest of Boudy, was murdered, and buried under a 
tree. His dog, an English bloodhound, would not quit his mas- 
ter's grave for several days, till at length compelled by hunger, 
he proceeded to the house of an intimate friend of his unfortu- 
nate master's, at Paris, and, by his melancholy howling, seemed 
desirous of expressing the loss they had both sustained. He re- 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 165 

peated his cries, ran to the door, looked back to see if any one 
followed him, returned to his master's friend, pulled him by the 
sleeve, and, with dumb eloquence, entreated him to go with him. 
The singularity of the dog's behavior, added to the circumstance 
of his coming there without his master, whose faithful compan- 
ion he had always been, prompted the company to follow the 
animal, who conducted them to a tree, where he renewed his 
howl, scratching the earth with his feet, significantly entreating 
them to search that particular spot. Accordingly, on digging, 
the body of the unhappy Aubri was found. Some time after, 
the dog accidentally met the assassin, who is styled, by all the 
historians who relate this fact, the Chevalier Macairi, when, in- 
stantly seizing him by the throat, he was, with great difficulty, 
compelled to quit his prey. In short, whenever the dog saw the 
Chevalier, he continued to attack and pursue him with equal 
fury. Such obstinate virulence in the animal, confined to Ma- 
cairi alone, appeared very extraordinary, especially to those who 
at once recollected the dog's remarkable attachment to his mas- 
ter, and several instances in which Macairi's envy and hatred to 
Mondidier had been conspicuous. Additional circumstances in- 
creased suspicion, and at length the affair reached the royal ear. 
The King (Louis the Eighth) accordingly sent for the dog, who 
appeared extremely gentle till he perceived Macairi in the midst 
of several noblemen, when he ran fiercely towards him, growling 
and attacking him as usual. 

"In those rude times, when no positive proof of a crime ap- 
peared, an order was issued for a combat between the accuser 
and the accused. These encounters were denominated the judg- 
ment of God, from a persuasion that Heaven would rather work 
a miracle than suffer innocence to perish with infamy. The 
king, struck with such an accumulation of circumstantial evi- 
dence against Macairi, determined to refer the decision to the 
chance of a battle. In other words, he gave orders for a combat 
between the Chevalier and the dog. The lists were appointed in 
the Isle of Notre Dame, then an uninclosed, uninhabited place. 
Macairi's weapon being a great cudgel, the dog had an empty 



1 66 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

cask allowed for his retreat, to enable him to recover breath. 
Everything being prepared, the dog no sooner found himself at 
liberty than he ran round his adversary, avoiding his blows, and 
menacing him on every side till his strength was exhausted; 
then springing forward, he griped him by the throat, threw him 
on the ground, and obliged him to confess his guilt, in the pres- 
ence of the king and the whole court. In consequence of which, 
after a few days the Chevalier was convicted, upon his own 
acknowledgement, and beheaded on a scaffold in the Isle of No- 
tre Dame. This curious narrative is translated from the Mem- 
oir es sur les Duels; and is confirmed by many judicious, criti- 
ical writers, particularly Julius Scaliger, and Montfoucon, neither 
of whom have been given to the fabrication of idle stories. " 



Parrot Story. 

A parrot, belonging to one of our servants, very soon knew 
us by name, and could distinguish the tread of its favorites, 
showing its joy by ruffling its feathers and making an odd noise 
in its throat. 'Polly' was very tame, and was sometimes allowed 
to walk about the house, always announcing its arrival in a room 
by 'Polly going a- walking.' In hot weather she enjoyed having 
water poured over her, and when satisfied would say, That's 
enough.' 

She used to tease our large dog by whistling loudly, and call- 
ing him 'Bran, Bran !' on which he ran in and looked around, 
and on the cook coming in, Polly would say reprovingly, 'Go 
back, Bran, go Back;' out went Bran, and by and by, when the 
cook's back was turned, the same scene was acted over again, 
until Bran grew wiser and neglected the call. 

Polly was a very accomplished bird, and, when quite alone, 
could be heard going through her acquirements. She sang 
'Cheer, boys, cheer,' very plainly, and could dance. If a stran- 
ger went into the kitchen, and no one was there, Polly called 
out, 'Somebody's wanted;' and she has more than once startled 
people by saying, 'What's your business?' 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 167 

We used to go in and see 'Polly' before we went to bed, and 
she always said 'Good-night' several times, each time in a differ- 
ent tone of voice. She called 'mamma my dear' until told it was 
not respectful, after which she always said 'ma'am.' The remarks 
this bird made were so apposite that it really seemed at times as 
if it understood what was going on. 



Robin Stories. 



In the years 1864 and 1865 a robin made itself at home in my 
dining-room, always coming to the window and tapping to have 
it opened at breakfast-time. When he came in, he shared my 
oatmeal porridge with me, seating himself on the edge of the 
cup and picking out such grains as caught his fancy. He then 
picked up crumbs of bread or toast, and, when he had satisfied 
himself, he sat on the back of my chair and sang, or sometimes 
betook himself to the top of a large screen. When he wished 
the window to be opened for him, he used to make a peculiar 
little noise, unlike any sound I ever heard from a bird — not loud, 
but very much like articulate language. 

As you may fancy, he was a great favorite with every one in 
the house. If the day were very cold, he always seated himself 
on the edge of the fender as soon as he was let in, puffing out 
his feathers to receive the heat, and when he found that he was 
warm enough, he came to his breakfast. 

During the summer of 1864 he came occasionally to the win- 
dow, but seldom came in, and then only for a moment, though 
he would sometimes follow me out of doors. In the winter of 
1864 — 5 he again established himself in the house, on his own 
familiar termj, and became even a greater pet than ever. He 
then began to prefer the butter-cooler to the porridge-cup for his 
breakfast, but I never allowed him to take too much. .He almost- 
lived in the house, sometimes remaining all night when the weather 
was bad. 

When summer came around again, he appeared one day at the 
window with his wife and children, who sat on the ledge of the 



1 68 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

window while he entered and took food out to them. It then 
came out that of late he had often been detected in carrying off 
food from the peacock's bowl which I kept in the dining-room; 
this food he had doubtless carried to his lady in her nest ; the 
dining-room window, being mostly open in summer, gave him 
access to the bowl. 

A sister-in-law of mine and her daughters came to stay with 
me just then, and to see the little readbreasts get their breakfasts 
daily from their papa was one of our morning's amusements. — 

But, alas ! one day he came looking very ill, with his feathers 
puffed out, and looking twice his natural size. I observed that 
he swallowed large lumps of butter himself while helping his 
young ones. This went on for some days, and at last he did not 
make his appearance at all; his wife and family came without 
him, and then we knew that he must be dead. There was gen- 
eral mourning for poor 'Bobby' in the house. I have never had 
so tame a redbreast before or since, though his wife and chil- 
dren, who seemed to miss him much, still continue to receive 
their dole at the window. 

I heard a still more wonderful story about a robin, from my 
sister-in-law, who knew the lady to whom the bird belonged. 
She had made it so tame that it used to fly after her carriage; 
and when she went in the winter to spend a few days with a 
friend who lived several miles from her house, the bird followed 
her. On the following morning, when she opened the window 
according to custom and called the robin, he at once entered 
the room and perched on her finger. 



A Tiger Frightend by a Mouse. 

Here is an anecdote of a tiger kept at the British Residency 
at Calcutta, India: What annoyed him far more than poking him 
up with a stick or tantalizing him with shins of beef and legs of 
mutton was introducing a mouse into his cage. No fine lady 
ever exhibited more terror at the sight of a spider than this mag- 
nificent royal tiger betrayed on seeing a mouse. The plan was 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 169 

to tie the little animal by a string to the end of a long pole, and 
thrust it close to the tiger's nose. The moment he saw it, he 
leaped to the opposite side; and when the mouse was made to 
run near him, he jammed himself in the corner, and stood trem- 
bling and roaring in the ecstacy of fear. Sometimes he had to 
pass over the spot where the unconscious little mouse run back- 
wards and forwards. For a long time, however, he would not 
move, till, at length, by the help of a squib, he was obliged to 
start; but, instead of pacing leisurely across the den, or of ma- 
king a detour to avoid the object of his alarm, he generally took 
a kind of flying leap, so high as nearly to bring his back in con- 
tact with the roof of his cage. 



Wonderful Instinct of a Dog, Horse and Cat. 

A dog belonging to Mr. Taylor, a clergyman, who lived at 
Colton near Wolseley Bridge, was accused of killing numbers of 
sheep. Complaints were made to his master, who asserted that 
the thing was impossible, because he was muzzled every night- 
The neighbors persisting in the charge, the dog one night was 
watched, and he was seen to get his head out of the muzzle, 
then to go into a field, and kill and eat as much of a sheep as 
satisfied his appetite. He next went into the river, to wash his 
mouth or quench his thirst, and returned afterwards to his ken- 
nel, got his head into the muzzle again, and lay very quietly 
down to sleep. 

Dr. McDonnel, of Belfast, mentions that the same design is 
apparent in a horse, which had been observed to disengage his 
head from the halter, then to open the door of the stable, and go 
out, in the middle of the night only, and regale upon corn in a 
field at a considerable distance from the stable. The horse re- 
turned to his stall before the break of day, and had continued 
this practice some time, without being detected. He adroitly 
opened the door, by drawing a string fastened to the latch, with 
his teeth. And, it is said, that on returning to the stable he shut 
the door. 



170 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

Some years ago, a family in Waterford were alarmed by an 
outer door belonging to their house being frequently opened 
without any visible cause. At last, after many surmises, a cat 
was observed approaching the door, and striving to push it open ; 
but, on finding it shut, she leaped up, put one paw on the handle 
of the latch, and with the other pulled down the thumb-piece, 
till the latch was raised; then she let herself down, and pushed 
with her head against the door, till it was sufficiently open to 
admit her. The family to whom this cat belonged saw her repeat 
the same feat several times. 



A Generous Sparrow. 

A lady possessed, among other birds, a canary, whose cage used 
to hang outside the window. One morning a sparrow perched on 
the cage, and seemed to hold a sort of conversation with the in- 
mate. Presently he flew away, but shortly returned with a grub, 
which he dropped into the cage. Every day at the same time the 
sparrow made his appearance with his accustomed offering, and 
the canary at last became sufficiently familiar to take his food di- 
rectly from the sparrow's beak. The lady then put some more 
cages out of the window, and the sparrow fed all the inmates, 
invariably, however, selecting the canary for his first visit, and 
making the longest stay with that bird. 



A Horse with a Snake Eye. 

This is from a Penn Yann, (N. Y.) paper : The horse with a 
snake in his eye was in town last week on exhibition at the sta- 
bles of the Knapp House. The reptile is comfortably located 
in the watery humor of the left eye, is several inches in length, 
perfectly formed, of a white color, and about the size of an ordi- 
nary darning needle. It is plainly visible, and is constantly on 
the move, wriggling and twisting in every direction. Its presence 
does not seem to annoy the horse in the least, and has evidently 
created no inflammation in or about the eye. It has, however, 
changed the color of the eye ball, it being of a lighter shade than 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 1 7 1 

that of the right eye, and has affected the sight somewhat. The 
snake was first discovered about two months since, when it was 
somewhat smaller than it is now. How it came in the horse's 
eye is a question which puzzles scientists. The horse is owned 
by a gentleman residing in Clyde. 



Fishes Fighting a Whale. 

Capt. Crow relates the following from personal observation : — 
"One morning during a calm, when near the Hebrides, all 
hands were called up at three in the morning to witness a battle 
between several of the fish called threshers, a fox shark, and 
some sword-fish on the one side, and an enormous whale on the 
other. It was in the middle of summer, and the weather being 
clear, and the fish close to the vessel, we had a fine opportunity 
of witnessing the contest. 

"As soon as the whale's back appeared above the water, the 
threshers, springing several yards in the air, descended with, 
great violence upon the object of their rancor, and inflicted upon 
him the most severe slaps with their long tails, the sound of 
which resembled the report of muskets fired at a distance. 

"The sword-fish, in turn, attacked the distressed whale, striking 
it from below; and thus, beset on both sides, and wounded, 
where the poor creature appeared, the water around him was 
dyed with blood. 

"In this manner they continued tormenting and wounding him, 
and I have no doubt that in the end they completed his destruc- 
tion. " 



Tantalizing Swallows. 

"I have entertained/' says Philip Skelton, "a great affection and 
some degree of esteem for swallows, ever since I saw a remark- 
able instance of their sense and humor played off upon a cat 
which had, upon a very fine day, rested herself upon the top of 
a gate-post, as if in contemplation, when ten or a dozen swallows 
knowing her to be an enemy, took it into their heads to tantalize 



172 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

her in a manner which showed a high degree not only of good 
sense but of humor. One of these birds, coming from behind 
her, flew close to her ear, and she made a snap at it with her 
paw, but it was too late. Another swallow, in five or six sec- 
onds, did the same, and she made the same unsuccessful attempt 
to catch' it ; this was followed by a third, and so on to the num- 
ber just mentioned; and every one as it passed seemed to set 
up a laugh at the disappointed enemy very like the laugh of a 
young child when tickled. The whole number, following one 
another at the distance of about three yards, formed a regular 
circle in the air, and played it off like a wheel at her ears for 
near an hour, not seemingly alarmed at me, who stood within 
six or seven yards of the post. I enjoyed this sport as well as 
the pretty birds, till the cat, tired out with disappointment, 
quitted the gate-post, as much huffed, I believe, as I had been 
diverted. 

Trained Dog. 

A gentleman at La Salle, 111., recently owned a setter that 
would bring meat, milk, or any articles desired, if furnished with 
a proper vessel for carrying it. She would go to the post-office 
and get the letters and papers. Should her master, either by 
accident or design drop anything and inform the dog of the fact 
by a word or two, she would immediately return and obtain it. 

While out hunting, her owner would frequently send her home 
for a supply of powder, caps and shot, which she would bring 
him, even when five or six miles from home. In fact she mani- 
fested almost human intelligence and was trained to perform 
many tricks. On one occasion, her master made a wager that 
she would obtain a sum of money from the bank without the 
knowledge of the officers, and in a short time the knowing brute 
succeeded in carrying off five hundred dollars. 

She was useful also, as well as amusing. While duck shooting 
one day, her owner accidentally fell into deep water, and being 
unable to swim, would soon have drowned; but the faithful ani- 
mal plunged in after him and by her timely assistance saved 
his life. 




i lamt-d Dog. 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 173 

A Cat's Gratitude. 

With regard to the sense of generosity and gratitude which 
can be developed in the cat, the following anecdote was related 
by a friend of the owner of the animal : 

The cat had some kittens, and one of them was taken ill, and 
was apparently in a dying state. The mother did all that she 
could for it; and then, finding all her efforts useless, brought the 
sick kitten to her mistress, laid it in her lap, and left it in her 
care. The lady accepted the charge, nursed the kitten through 
its illness, and at last was able to give it back to its mother quite 
restored to health. 

Some time aterward the lady herself was seized with illness, 
and was unable to leave her bed. By some mysterious means, 
whether by instinct, or by gathering the meaning of the conver- 
sations around her, the cat became aware of her mistress' 
illness. Finding herself unable to enter the room by the door, 
she contrived to climb up the wall of the house, scrambled in at 
the window, jumped on the bed, and laid on the pillow a mouse, 
as an offering of affection and gratitude. 



Suicide of a Dog. 

A fine black dog of the Newfoundland species, belonging to 
Mr. Floyd, of Helmforth, committed suicide by drowning him- 
self in the river which flows near the owner's habitation. For 
several days previous the animal seemed less animated than 
usual, but on this particular occasion he was seen to throw him- 
self into the water and endeavor to sink by preserving perfect 
stillness of the legs and feet. Being dragged out of the stream 
the dog was saved and tied up for a time; but he had no sooner 
been released than he hastened away to the water again, tried to 
sink and was again got out. 

This occurred many times, until at length the animal with re- 
peated efforts appeared to get exhausted and by dint of keeping 
his head determinedly under water for a few minutes succeeded 
at last in obtaining his object, for when taken out this time he 
was indeed dead. 



174 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

— Rev. J. G. Wood has a friend who pets butterflies, that 
know their keeper and come at the call of their names. 

— A wolf in the Zoological Gardens at Clifton immediately 
recognized an old friend after an absence of two years. 

— A mole in St. Malo is said to have known its name, to come 
when called, and would collect scattered silver coins and return 
them to its master. 

— A wasp whose "remains" now occupy a place in the British 
Museum, was the pet of a gentleman whose attention it always 
appreciated with singular acknowldgements. 

— A gentleman residing in Paris purchased a dog whose native 
place was four hundred miles away. The dog was safely taken 
to Paris, but soon made his escape and returned home. 

— A cockatoo whose mistress was absent three years, was the 
first of the family to greet her return, by flying to the carriage at 
the front door, saying "Kiss me, my dear, kiss me Sa!" 

— Near Litchfield a hare was shot that had several young ones. 
These were carried off by a cat that was expected to make a 
meal of them; but it appeared afterward, that she adopted 
and nurtured them as her own 

— A gentleman once said in the hearing of an old dog who 
was at the time basking in the sun — "I must have Ponto killed, 
for he is getting old and is offensive. " The dog slunk away and 
never came near his master afterwards. 

— I had a dog, says Berkley, having once scalded his tongue, 
always afterward, when I gave him his milk for breakfast, put his 
paw very cautiously in the saucer, to see if the liquid was hot, 
before he would touch it with his tongue. 

— A peewit that was kept tame in a garden took up its abode 
in a house, and associated with a dog and cat; and gradually be- 
came so familiar as to show marks of indignation if either of 
them interrupted him when he was bathing himself in a basin of 
water. 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 175 

— A cat that evidently intended to make a meal out of an En- 
glish sparrow one day in London, was set upon by a whole flock 
of these birds and dreadfully mobbed. Poor Tommy was com- 
pelled to retreat, badly wounded, into the house, when he ran up 
stairs under a bed. 

— A horse that had been sold and had not seen its original 
owner for seventeen years, recognized him one day when his 
name was called, and though harnessed to a cart, followed him 
along the street, and it was with difficulty he was induced to 
move away. 

— A mule which belonged to a convent was averse to work; — 
there were eighty-four mules, each being worked on one day of 
the week. This mule knew its own day, and that morning it al- 
ways tried to keep the servants out of the yard by backing up 
against the door ! 

— Dr. Bennet in his "Gatherings of a naturalist in Australia," 
mentions that a couple of young duckbills in his possession used 
to play at hide-and-seek behind the furniture of the room. One 
would hide itself and then give a squeak, when the other would 
hunt for it, and at last find it. 

— A lady informed Rev. J. G. Wood that, when a girl, she had 
a pony that would play hide-and-seek with the children. Hiding 
was necessarily only a pretense on the part of the pony: but the 
animal would go to some corner, hide its head, and make believe 
that it was entirely concealed. 

— Says Mr. Jesse; "I have been informed of two instances of 
dogs having slipped their collars and put their heads into them 
again on their own accord, after having committed depedations 
in the night; and I have now in my possession, a dog who undid 
the collar of another dog chained to a kennel near him. " 

— A man in Norridgework, Maine, says he has a goose sixty- 
eight years old. Though having attained this green old age, she 



176 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

is by no means a green goose. The secret of her longevity, it is 
said, consists in the fact that she hid away about Christmas time, 
until she became too old for a holiday dinner. Thus she is 
permitted to live on ! 

— One of the carriers of a New York Paper, having become in" 
disposed, his son took his place; but not knowing the subscri- 
bers he was to supply, he took for his guide a dog which had usu- 
ally attended his father. The animal trotted on ahead of the 
boy, and stopped at every door where the paper was subscribed 
for, without making a single omisssion. 

— Mr. Wood, in his "Man and Beast, " alluding to the humor of 
animals, remarks: "I knew of one case — a solitary one I hope — 
where the rooster scratched as usual, called his wives, and, when 
they had assembled around him, ate the morsel himself. It was 
just like the old school practical joke. Old boy to new boy, 
holding out an apple : 'Do you like apples?' New boy to old 
boy: 'yes.' Old boy to new: 'then see me eat one.' " 

— In illustration of the memory of dogs, Mr. Jesse remarks: — 
" In my younger days I had a favorite dog, which always ac- 
companied me to church. My mother, seeing that he attracted 
too much of my attention, ordered the servant to shut him up 
every Sunday morning. This was done once, but never after- 
wards; for he concealed himself early every Sunday morning, 
and I was sure to find him either under my seat at church, or 
else at the church door. 

— An English officer had a large dog, which he left with his fam- 
ily in England, while he accompanied an expedition to America 
during the war of the Colonies. Throughout his absence, the 
animal appeared very much dejected. When the officer returned 
home, the dog, who happened to be lying at the door of the 
apartment into which his master was about to enter, immediately 
recognized him, leapt upon his neck, licked his face, and in a few 
minutes fell dead at his feet. 



Animals. ANECDOTES. 1 7 7 

— On the farm of Mr. Wm. R. Arnold, near Providence, R. I., 
a white hen turkey that had a brood of young ones, was killed 
by a dog. The white gobbler that had been daily accompanying 
the mother and chicks, seemed to comprehend the sad situa- 
tion of the little ones and showed his paternal wisdom and good 
nature at once by scratching, feeding, covering and otherwise 
caring for the young turks, to the best of his ability. This fath- 
erly gobbler was a present to Mr. Arnold by R. S. Rhodes, of 
Chicago. 

— The writer, when a boy was always delighted with the gam- 
bols and traits of his father's horses. Each had its individual 
peculiarities, "Logan" was decidedly obedient, and would come 
and go at the beck; "Alice" knew the "noon hour" to a dot, and 
expected her dinner "on time." "Charlie" disliked gunpowder 
and sharp lightning; "Pomp," a fine runner, would chase a hare 
like a dog; and "Peg" and "Tava" were remrkable for their gen- 
tleness and good disposition, the former allowing herself to be 
he "circus horse," when "we boys performed." 

— In illustration of the humor of animals, Mr. Wood cites an 
instance where two ladies were sitting at work in a room in 
which was a pet canary belonging to one of them. The bird 
threw a reel of cotton on the floor, took the end of the thread in 
his beak, and wound it first round the neck of one lady, and 
then round that of the other, until the reel was empty, when the 
bird perched on a chair, and seemed quite pleased with the freak. 
The lady to whom the bird belonged tried to unwind the thread 
from her neck; but every time she attempted to remove it, the 
canary flew at her and flapped its wings in her face so as to 
prevent her from freeing herself. 

— A fireman's dog "Bob," always starts up promptly when the 
fire alarm bell rings, and runs before the engine, barking, to clear 
the way. For years he has attended every fire, and so efficient 
has been the aid rendered, that the dog has been presented with 
a fine collar, properly inscribed. On one occasion a fire broke 



178 ENTERTAINING Animals. 

out in a chemical laboratory, filled with explosive materials. Un- 
deterred by the noise and smoke, "Bob" rushed in, and finding 
that every person had escaped, came away, bringing a dreadfully 
frightened cat in his mouth, which he saved from a cruel death. 

— "When I was a boy," says a friend, "I knew a little dog, a 
King Charles spaniel, which was an accomplished player at the 
well known game called 'tag' or 'touch.' The little animal dis- 
played quite as much enthusiasm as any of the human players, 
and would dart away from the boy who happened to be 'touch,' 
with an anxiety that approximated to terror. Of course to touch 
the dog was an impossibility; but he was a generous little crea- 
ture, with a strong sense of justice, and so, when he thought his 
turn ought to come, he stood still and waited quietly to be 
touched. " 

— A gentleman staying at aho'el in Dublin, had ordered dinner 
at a certain hour, and, afraid of being too late, he hired a cab, 
and desired the driver to put his horse to its speed, so that he 
might reach the hotel in time. The whip was applied, but the 
animal got restive, and warped and twisted, endangering the 
shafts of the vehicle. "Can't ye get on?" said the impatient 
traveler; "I'll be too late." "Well sir," said Pat, "I'm doing all 
I can, but you see the brute knows that your honor is a stranger 
in Dublin, and he wishes you to stop and take a look at the 
public buildings!" 

— An old family horse that had been running at large through 
the streets and commons of Madison, Ohio, lost one of his shoes 
recently, and with the intelligence of a human being, walked up 
to the blacksmith shop where he had been shod for the last fif- 
teen years, and to the best of his ability asked the smith to shoe 
him, by raising his foot and stamping on the ground. The smith 
being busy, drove him away several times during the day, and 
thought nothing of it. The next morning the horse came back, 
and entering the shop, walked up to the anvil and raised his 
foot. The smith understood the case at once, and attended to 
his wants, and the grateful animal trotted contentedly away. 




The Lassie. 



ANECDOTES. 179 



LOVE STORIES. 



"The Heart Never Forgets." 

Robert Collyer is responsible for the following interesting 
little story: 

A fine old Highlander told me last year how the year before he 
had gone back to the glen he had left half a century ago, where 
no man knew him or remembered him. "But," said he, "I heard 
of one woman alive, up the glen, whom I had thought well of 
as a lassie, and she of me, in a shy way; still, you see, we had 
no troth between us to make things sure, and so the strain of 
time and distance broke the thread. I settled down hereaway; 
and the memory of it was all but dead, until I heard her name. 
Then I said, "I will go up the glen and see her." I wondered 
whether she had lost all track of me; for it was rather sad, ye 
see, to be left out in the cold in this way. She came to the door, 
a white-haired woman, so altered it was hard to mind her at all. 
She looked at me in a wondering way, gave one sharp cry, and 
said, "John, is that you after all?" I asked her, after a while, 
how she knew me; and was answered, "The heart never forgets, 
John; don't you mind what good friends we were? I saw the 
laddie and heard him speak when I saw your face and heard 
your voice." Memory flashing out into remembrance had made 
all old things new for her, as she sat in the near neighborhood 
of that inheritance in life where there is no marrying or giving 
in marriage, but where men and women shall be as the angels 
of God 



180 ENTERTAINING Love. 

A Child Queen. 

The following story is told of a tittle French Princess, who 
was married and crowned Queen of England when only eight 
years old, and who became a widow at twelve : 

The child-sovereign was born many hundred years ago — in 
1387 — at the Palace of the Louvre, in Paris. She was the daugh- 
ter of the poor King Charles VI., whose misfortunes made him 
insane, and for whose amusement playing cards were invented, 
and of his Queen, Isabeau of Bavaria, a beautiful but very wick- 
ed woman. Little Isabella was the eldest of twelve children. — 
She inherited her mother's beauty, and was petted by her parents 
and the entire Court of France. 

King Richard II of England, who was a widower about thirty 
years old, was urged to marry again; and, instead of selecting a 
wife near his own age, his choice fell upon little Princess 
Isabella. 

"She is much too young," he was told. "Even in five or 
six years she will not be old enough to be married." The King, 
however, thought this objection too trifling to stand in the way 
of his marriage, and saying, "The lady's age is a fault that every 
day will remedy," he sent a magnificent embassy to the Court 
of France, headed by the Archbishop of Dublin, and consisting 
of Earls, Marshals, Knights, and Squires of Honor uncounted, 
with attendants to the number of five hundred. 

When the Embassy reached Paris, and the offer of marriage 
had been formally accepted, the Archbishop and the Earls 
asked to see the little Princess who was soon to become their 
Queen. At first the French Council refused, saying so young a 
child was not prepared to appear on public occasions, and they 
could not tell how she might behave. The English noblemen 
were so solicitous, however, that at last, she was brought before 
them. The Earl Marshal immediately knelt before her, and 
said in the old fashioned language of the time: "Madam, if it 
shall please God, you shall be our Lady and Queen. " 

Queen Isabeau stood at a little distance, curious and anxious, 



Love. ANECDOTES. 181 

no doubt, to know how her little daughter would answer the for- 
mal address. To her great pleasure, and the great surprise of 
all present, the Princess Isabella replied : 

"Sir, If it please God and my father that I be Queen of Eng- 
land, I shall be well pleased, for I am told I shall then be a 
great lady." 

Then giving the Marshal her tiny hand to kiss, she bade him 
rise from his knees, and leading him to her mother, she presen- 
ted him to her with the grace and ease of a mature woman. 

According to the fashion of the time, Princess Isabella was 
immediately married by proxy, and received the title of the 
Queen of England. Froissart, the celebrated historian of that 
epoch, says: "It was very pretty to see her, young as she was, 
practicing how to act the Queen. " 

In a few days, king Richard arrived from England with a gay 
and numerous retinue of titled ladies to attend his little bride. — 
After many grand festivities they were married, and taken in state 
to England, where the Child Queen was crowned in the famous 
Westminster Abbey. 



A Physician "Pops the Question" by a Queer 
Prescription. 

On one occasion, when I was ill, the General called in Dr. 
Hunt, his family physician. The Doctor was a tall, lank, ugly 
man — "as good as gold," but with none of the graces that are 
supposed to win young ladies; yet he was married to one of the 
loveliest young creatures I ever knew. General Jackson accom- 
panied him to my room, and after my pulse had been duly felt 
and my tongue duly inspected, they drew their chairs to the fire 
and began to talk. "Hunt," suddenly exclaimed the Presi- 
dent, "how came you to get such a young and pretty wife?" 
"Well, I'll tell you," replied the doctor. "I was called to attend 
a young lady at the convent in Georgetown. Her eyes were 
bad; she had to keep them bandaged. I cured her without her 
ever having a distinct view of me. She left the institution, and 
a year afterward she appeared here in society, a belle and a 



1 82 ENTERTAINING Love. 

beauty. At a ball I introduced myself without the slightest ul- 
terior design, as the physician who had restored her sight, al- 
though I supposed she had never really seen me. She instantly 
expressed the most heart-felt gratitude. It seemed so deep and 
genuine that I was touched. That very evening she informed 
me that she had a severe cold, and that I must again prescribe 
for her. Well! it don't look reasonable, but I did it. I wrole 
my name on a bit of paper, folded it and handed it to her, telling 
her she must take that prescription. She read it and laughed. 
'It's a bitter pill,' she said, 'and must be well gilded if ever I take 
it.' But whether it was bitter or whether it was gilded, we were 
married." 



A Professor's Love, 



A charming love story, with a college professor — possibly 
Thomas C. Upham, of Bowdoin — for its hero, is told as follows: 
Among the white Hills many years ago, a young student met a 
lovely girl and lost his heart, but dared not tell her, so timid and 
retiring was he. She seemed to be aware of his attachment, 
and looked upon him with kind eyes, but nothing came of the 
acquaintance. They separated, and subsquently each married 
another. He became a college professor, evinced talent of high 
order, and won reputation at home and abroad. At last the 
weight of years compelled him to give up the duties of his pro- 
fessorship. She who had shared the honors of his career had 
passed away, and the white-haired professor was left alone. He 
made a journey to those granite hills where he had sighed and 
dreamt in boyhood, and there he found a silver haired widow — 
his old-time sweetheart. After a long time he rose to take his 
leave, and the dignity, reserve and bashfulness which had been 
the instincts of his life, seemed to forsake him. Taking the 
venerable lady by the hand, for the first and last time in his life, 
looking her tenderly in the face and calling by her her Christian 
name, he said; "I have a favor to ask of -you. Will you grant 
me a kiss?" Their lips met with all the fervency, if not the 
passion of youth, whilst tears streamed down their aged cheeks. 



Love. ANECDOTES. 183 

The Widower and the Widow. 

When Mr. Thomas Thompson was courting the widow who 
became his sixth wife, said he, taking a pinch of snuff and look- 
ing wise, "I will tell you what I expect of you, my clear. You 
are aware that I have had a good deal of matrimonial experi- 
ence. Ho-hum! it makes me sad to think of it. My lot in 
the cemetery is almost full, and I may truly say that my cup of 
misery would be running over at this moment if it were not for 
you. But to business. I was about to remark that Jane, my first, 
could make better coffee than any other woman in this world. — 
I trust you will adopt her recipe for the preparation of that 
beverage. " 

"My first husband frequently remarked" began the widow, 

"And there was Susan," interrupted Mr. Thompson. "Susan 
was the best mender that probably ever lived. It was her delight 
to find a button off, and, as for rents in coats and things, I have 
seen her shed tears of joy when she saw them, she was so desi- 
rous of using her needle for their repair. Oh, what a woman 
Susan was ! " 

"Many is the time," began the widow, that my first hus" 

"With regard to Anna, who was third," said Mr. Thompson, 
hastily, "I think her forte above all others was in the accom- 
plishment of the cake known as slapjack. I have very pleasant 
visions at this moment of my angelic Anna as she appeared in 
the kitchen of a frosty morning, enveloped in smoke and the 
morning sunshine that stole into my window, or bearing to my 
plate a particularly nice article of slapjack, with the remark, 
'That's the nicest one yet, Thomas. Eat it while it's hot.' — 
Sometimes I assure you, my dear, these recollections are quite 
overpowering." 

He applied his handkerchief to his eyes, and the widow said, 
"Ah, yes. I know how it is, myself, sir. Many is the time that 
I see, in my lonely hours my dear first hus" 

"The pride and the joy of Julia, my fourth, and I may say, too, 
of Clara, my fifth," interrupted Mr. Thompson, and with some 
apparently accidental violence of tone, "lay in the art of making 



1 84 ENTERTAINING Love. 

over their spring-bonnets. If you will believe it, my dear, one 
bonnet lasted those two blessed women through all the happy 
years they lived with me. They would turn them, and make 
them over so many, many times! Dear ! dear! what a chang- 
ing world ! " 

"I say so to myself a hundred times a day, sir," said the wid- 
ow with a sigh. "I frequently remarked to my first hus" 

"Madame!" said Mr. Thompson suddenly, and with great 
sternness, "oblige me by never mentioning that cheap man 
again. Are you not aware that he must necessarily be out of 
the question forever more? Can you not see that your continu- 
al references to him sicken my soul? Let us have peace, Mad- 
ame —let us have peace. " 

"Very well, sir," said the widow, meekly. "I beg your pardon, 
and promise not to do it again. " 

And they were married, and their lives were as bright and 
peaceful as Mrs. Miller's sundown seas. 



How an Emperor Found his Wife. 

The Emperor Francis Joseph, of Austria, is indefatigable in his 
application to business. He retires to rest at the hour when 
life is beginning in Vienna, and at five o'clock, in winter as in 
summer, the Emperor, active, laborious, and watchful, is always 
on foot again. He breakfasts on a cup of coffee placed on his 
desk, smokes one of the ordinary Viennese cigars, while reading 
his voluminous despatches, and remains hard at work till the ear- 
ly family dinner. Enthusiastic sportsman as he is, and devoted 
to mountain scenery, no wonder he is delighted to hurry away to 
his favorite hunting grounds in the hills of the Saltzkammergat. 
He leaves Vienna in the evening, like an honest merchant who 
has finished his business; he crosses the Traunsee in the night, 
and arrives at Ischl at five in the morning. There he is to be 
seen in his blouse, with his great walking stick, roaming about in 
the most enchanting district of all his picturesque dominions, 
or chatting familiarly with the peasants, or their children. He 
is very happy in his marriage. His first meeting with his future 



Love. ANECDOTES. 185 

Empress was romantic. One of her sisters had been destined for 
the Imperial throne, and when Francis Joseph in his hunting 
dress arrived one eveuing at his father-in-law's residence on the 
Traunsee, he was received by four young ladies of the family, 
who have all since made excellent marriages. As he was chat- 
ting with the group, he saw an apparition of beauty, with magnif- 
icent hair floating over the shoulders, illuminated in the full glow 
of the sunset, approaching them from the neighboring wood. It 
was the Princess Elizabeth, the fifth of the sisters, and the Em- 
peror from that moment became her slave. 



An Alaska Romance. 



A young man in Alaska fell in love with the only young lady 
on the Island, a girl of fifteen, who was possessed of extraordi- 
nary beauty, and whose hair fell below her knees. But he was 
unable to communicate the "old, old story" to her, for she did 
not understand a word of English, nor did he speak Russian- 
In his dilemma the arrival of the priest on his once-in-two years 
visit was a god-send, and to him he made known his love. The 
priest, knowing the young man to be possessed of a high charac- 
ter and a fair fortune, thought it was a lucky chance for the 
young lady to escape from a life of such isolation, and he wil- 
lingly persuaded the girl's mother (her father was dead) to con- 
sent to the match, but the young lady herself was not to be per- 
suaded. She argued that she had never spoken to the young 
man who expressed such a desire to be her husband, and only 
seen him twice, and he had been on the Island only forty-eight 
days, but her objections were overruled, and the marriage took 
place. After living in Alaska for several months, the young man 
brought his bride to his home in Cleveland, O. She was aston- 
ished at the fashions she saw, and declared that nothing would 
induce her to wear her hair otherwise than flowing — as she had 
always worn it. But before twenty four hours had passed her 
mother-in-law had persuaded her to try the effect of braids around 
her broad and shapely head; and now she dresses as much in the 



1 86 ENTERTAINING Love. 

fashion as any lady in Cleveland. Last year her husband went 
to Alaska again and brought home the young sister, who is eleven 
years of age, and promises to be as beautiful as the elder. 
The mother, bereft of both her children, still clings to her home 
on one of the Islands of Alaska. 



A Nurse who Sacrificed Her Own Life to Save 
Five Children. 

One of the nursing Sisters of the order of Troyes succumbed 
recently at Paris to an attack of hydrophobia, contracted under 
circumstances of no ordinary heroism. A month ago Sister Mary 
was taking charge for a walk of five convalescent children, the 
eldest of whom was only eight years of age, when they were as- 
sailed by a sheep-dog, whose jaws were running with foam, and 
who attacked them with fury. She instantly saw the danger of 
her charges, and, resolutely interposing between the terrified 
children and the furious animal, bravely withstood its attack. 
She was severely bitten, and the dog, excited by the cries of the 
children, endeavored to rush upon them. Then followed a splen- 
did act of devotion. Protecting with her body the children who 
hung on her petticoats shrieking with terror, this brave girl threw 
herself courageously upon the dog, and for ten minutes grasped 
it, rolling over with it, and thrusting her fist into its mouth to 
prevent its biting the children. Some persons who came lip at 
last, beat off and killed the dog. The Sister was found to have 
fifteen deep wounds on her hands and lacerated arms; an impor- 
tant artery was wounded. Skillful care was given to her wounds, 
ligatures were applied, the parts torn were cauterized, and for a 
short time after her return to Paris some hope existed that she 
might escape the ultimate fate which there was so much reason to 
fear. Later, however, the pharyngeal spasm, vomiting, and hy- 
prophobia, in all its characteristic symptoms appeared; and Sis- 
ter Mary died from this fatal and fearful disease, finding consola- 
lation in the certitude of having saved at the price of her life, the 
five children who had been confided to her. 



Love. ANECDOTES. 187 

"To Have and to Hold." 

A prominent Episcopal clergyman was invited to one of the 
hotels in Detroit to marry a couple from Canada. They did not 
.want any witnesses, and they wanted the ceremony to be about 
one minute long. To this the reverend gentleman objected. 
Under the law of this State a marriage is not valid unless wit- 
nessed by two persons. They were procured, and the couple 
struck an attitude calculated to show to an advantage an array 
of fine clothes, and two rather good looking faces, the owners of 
which would (so the marriage certificate stated) never see their 
twenty-sixth birth day again. The ceremony ran smoothly until 
the pledges were given. 

"I, Kate," continued the minister 

"I, Kate," she faltered, 

"Take thee, William," 

"Take thee, William," 

"To be my wedded husband — " 

"To be my wedded husband," 

"To have and to hold — " 

A smile puckered the corner of her mouth, which was finally 
extended in a hearty laugh; no response. The minister was 
astounded at the untimely exhibition of frivolity; the witnesses 
were highly amused, and the would-be bridegroom struggled to 
retain his self-possession. 

"To have and to hold — " repeated the minister. 

"To have — Te! he! he!" and she broke down again. A 
repetition of the former scene was broken into by the solemn 
and commanding voice, 

"To have and to ho!—" 

"To — " she began; then indulged in a frenzy of mirth which 
spread to all but the dignified and chagrined tyer of the knots. 

"You think this a very trivial matter," he said sternly, "but I 
fancy you won't find it so funny if you intend beginning life to- 
gether in this ridiculous manner. I've a mind to punish you by 
refusing to complete the ceremony, but on second thought, I 
think it will be better to read you a homily, and then I will 



1 88 ENTERTAINING love. 

finish that which I have begun if I have to stay here until to- 
morrow morning. " 

The homily was delivered, and the couple, now quite serious, 
resumed their trying position, and were duly married. 

"I wouldn't have laughed," said the bride, by way of explan- 
ation, "but I never heard the Episcopal marriage ceremony 
before, and it was so funny to think that I had got to promise to 
hold this great big fellow all the rest of my life, that I couldn't 
keep from laughing." 



Queen Victoria's Love for Prince Albert— Their 
Marriage. 

The following interesting meeting, interviews, and final mar- 
riage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert is from James Parton 
in "Eminent Women of the Age": 

Prince Albert was naturally uneasy at her silence. A young 
man of twenty-one must not long delay to choose a career. So 
far, his life had been shaped by a secret but confident expecta- 
tion that he would one day be the consort of his cousin Victoria, 
and if this was not to be his destiny, it was necessary to seek 
another. Impatient to know his fate, he came to England in 
October, 1839, resolved to bring the matter to a conclusion. 
Three years had passed since the cousins had seen one another. 

When last they had met, she was a girl of seventeen, living a 
retired life at Kensington Palace with her mother and her tutors, 
with little revenue and less ostentation. He was but a lively lad, 
not grown to his full stature, and unbecomingly fat. But now 
how different were they both ! 

It was half-past seven in the evening of October the 10th, 
1839, when Prince Albert and his brother alighted at the princi- 
pal entrance of Windsor Castle, one of the grandest looking 
royal residences in Europe. At the top of the staircase, the 
queen herself met them in evening attire, and invested with the 
dignity which the very title of queen seems to carry with it. 
Nor was the change in him less striking in a maiden's eyes. The 



Love. ANECDOTES. 189 

prince had grown tall, symmetrical and handsome. That down 
upon his upper lip of three years before was now an elegant 
moustache. He had become a man. There was also in his 
countenance, we are told, a gentleness of expression, and a 
smile of peculiar sweetness, with a look of thought and intelli- 
gence in his clear blue eye, and fair, broad forehead, which 
conciliated every one who looked upon him. He was the very 
prince of Romance, — just the hero wanted for the dazzling 
fiction of which Victoria was the gentle heroine. 

His fate was decided promptly enough. The queen was de- 
lighted with his appearance and bearing. She conducted him 
herself to her mother. It was about dinner-time when they 
arrived, and yet they could not dine with the queen that night, 
for a reason which the queen herself explains: "Their clothes 
not having arrived, they could not appear at dinner, but came 
in after it in spite of their morning dresses. " There was a large 
company of lords and ministers staying at the castle then, and 
the etiquette of the dinner could not be dispensed with, even in 
favor of those young princes. 

Four days sufficed ! On the fourth day after the arrival of the 
prince, the queen told Lord Melbourne that she had made up 
her mind to marry him. The minister said he was very glad to 
hear it, and that he thought the news would be well received. 

"You will be much more comfortable," added Lord Mel- 
bourne, in his simple, fatherly manner; "for a woman cannot 
stand alone for any time, in whatever position she may be. " 

Accordingly, on the following day Prince Albert came in from 
hunting at the unusually early hour of twelve, for he had received 
an intimation the evening before that the queen had something 
particular to say to him. On being summoned to the queen's 
presence he found her alone. Precisely what occurred on the 
occasion will never be known. It seems, however, that it de- 
volved upon the queen to propose the momentous question. The 
following is the Prince's version of what passed, as given in his 
letter to his grandmother: — 

"The subject which has occupied us so much of late is at last 



1 9 o ENTERTAINING Love. 

settled. The queen sent for me alone to her room a few days 
ago, and declared to me in a genuine ontburst of love and affec- 
tion that I had gained her whole heart, and would make her 
intensely happy if I would make her the sacrifice of sharing her 
life with her, for she said she looked on it as a sacrifice. The 
only thing which troubled her was that she did not think that she 
was worthy of me. The joyous openness of manner in which 
she told me this quite enchanted me, and I was quite carried 
away by it. She is really most good and amiable, and I am quite 
sure Heaven has not given me into evil hands, and that we shall 
be happy together. Since that moment Victoria does whatever 
she fancies I should wish or like, and we talk a great deal about 
our future life, which she promises to make as happy as possible. 
Oh, the future ! does it not bring with it the moment when I 
shall have to take leave of my dear, dear home, and of you? I 
cannot think of that without deep melancholy taking possession 
of me." 

As soon as the interview was over, the queen, according to 
her custom, recorded her feelings in her diary. 

"How I will strive," she wrote, in the first gush of tender emo- 
tion, "to make him feel as little as possible the great sacrifice he 
has made ! I told him it was a great sacrifice on his part, but he 
would not allow it. I then told him to fetch Ernest (his broth- 
er), who congratulated us both and seemed very happy. Ernest 
told me how perfect his brother was. " 

The same afternoon, she wrote to her Uncle Leopold, King 
of the Belgians, who had from the first favored the match most 
warmly. This letter is highly creditable to the good, simple 
heart of the maiden queen : — 

"My mind is quite made up, and I told Albert this morning of 
it. He seems perfection, and I think that I have the prospect of 
very great happiness before me. I love him more than I can 
say, and shall do everything in my power to render this sacrifice 
(for in my opinion it is) as small as I can. He seems to have 
great tact, — a very necessary thing in his position. These last 
few days have passed like a dream to me, and I am so much be- 



Love. ANECDOTES. 191 

wildered by it all that I know hardly how to write; but I do feel 
very happy. It is absolutely necessary that this determination 
of mine should be known to no one but yourself and to Uncle 
Ernest until after the meeting of Parliament, as it would be con- 
sidered, otherwise, neglectful on my part not to have assembled 
Parliament at once to inform them of it. " 

To which the good old king replied, very sensibly and hap- 
pily:— 

"In your position * * * you could not exist without 
having a happy and agreeable 'Interieur.' And I am much 
deceived, (which I think I am not,) or you will find in Albert 
just the qualities and disposition which are indispensable for 
your happiness, and which will suit your own character, temper, 
and mode of life. You say most amiably that you consider it a 
sacrifice on the part of Albert. This is true in many points, be- 
cause his position will be a difficult one; but much, I may say 
all, will depend on your affection for him. If you love him, and 
are kind to him, he will easily bear the bothers of his position, 
and there is a steadiness, and, at the same time, a cheerfulness 
in his character which will facilitate this. " 

Nothing remained but to announce the intended marriage to 
the Privy Council, and through the council to the country. The 
council met, November 23d, to the number of eighty, in one of 
the large rooms of Buckingham Palace, the Queen's London 
residence. It devolved upon the queen herself to make the 
announcement to this formidable company. 

"Precisely at two," the queen wrote in her diary, "I went in. 
The room was full, but I hardly knew who was there. Lord 
Melbourne I saw looking kindly at me with tears in his eyes, 
but he was not near me. I then read my short declaration. — 
I felt my hands shook, but I did not make one mistake. I felt 
most happy and thankful when it was over. " Lord Landsdown 
then rose, and, in the name of the Privy Council, asked that 
'this most gracious and most welcome communication might be 
printed.' I then left the room, the whole thing not lasting above 
two or three minutes. The Duke of Cambridge came into the 



192 ENTERTAINING Love. 

small library where I was standing and wished me joy." 

The queen wore a bracelet in which was a portrait of Prince 
Albert, and she says in her journal, "It seemed to give me cour- 
age at the council. " 

On the nth of February, 1840, at the Royal Chapel of St. 
James, in London, in the presence of all that was distinguished 
and splendid in the life of Great Britain, the marriage was sol- 
emnized. The queen, as brides generally do, looked pale and 
anxious. Her dress was a rich white satin, trimmed with 
orange blossoms, and upon her head she wore a wreath of the 
same beautiful flowers. Over her head, but not so as to conceal 
her face, a veil of Honiton lace was thrown. She was sparingly 
decorated with diamonds. She wore, however, a pair of very 
large diamond ear-rings, and a diamond necklace. Her twelve 
bridesmaids were attired in similar taste, and they were all young 
ladies of remarkable beauty. Prince Albert was dressed in the 
uniform of a British field-marshal, and was decorated with the 
collar and star of the Order of the Garter. At the moment 
when the queen and prince advanced to the communion-table, 
and stood before the Archbishop of Canterbury, the scene was 
in the highest degree splendid and interesting. But its splendors 
seemed to fade away before the majestic simplicity of the mar- 
riage service. There was really a kind of simplicity in the 
plainness and directness of the language employed: — 

"Albert wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife?" 
and "Victoria, wilt thou have. Albert to be thy wedded husband?" 
and "Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" 

To this last question the Duke of Sussex replied by taking 
the queen's hand and saying "I do." Perhaps some in the as- 
sembly may have smiled when the Queen of England promised 
to obey this younger son of a German Duke, and when he said 
"With all my worldly goods 1 thee endow." The queen tells us, 
however, that she pronounced the word obey with a deliberate 
intent to keep her vow, and that she kept it. 

There was, of course, the wedding breakfast at Buckingham 
Palace, which was attended by the royal family, the ministry, 



Love. ANECDOTES. 193 

the maids of honor, and other personal attendants of the queen 
and prince. Soon after seven o'clock in the evening, the royal 
chariot dashed into Windsor with its escort of life-guards, amid 
the cheers of the whole population of the town. The honey- 
moon was spent at Windsor Castle. 



Love Stronger than Law and Death. 

The case of Edward Cooper, tried before one of the Courts- 
martial of the Army of Northern Virginia, during 1863, illustrates 
his great love for his wife and children : 

The prisoner was charged with desertion. He declined the 
use of counsel. The Judge Advocate opened the case and 
clearly proved his guilt. The accused was told to produce his 
witnesses. He said that he had none, and his only defense was 
a letter from his wife, which he handed to the President of the 
Court. It read as follows : 

My Dear Edward : I have always been proud of you, and 
since your connection with the Confederate army I have been 
prouder of you than ever before. I would not have you do any- 
thing wrong for the world ; but before God, Edward, unless you 
come home we must die. Last night I was aroused, by little 
Eddie's crying. I called and said, "What is the matter, Eddie?" 
And he said, "O, mamma, I am so hungry." And Lucy, 
Edward — your darling Lucy — she never complains, but she is 
growing thinner and thinner every day. And before God, Ed- 
ward, unless you come home we must die. Your Mary. 

The President, General Cullen A. Battle, and other members 
of the court were melted to tears, and asked the artilleryman 
what he did on the reception of the letter. He replied that he 
had made three separate and ineffectual applications for a fur- 
lough, and then resolved, upon whatever cost, to visit his home. 
Upon meeting his wife she was broken-hearted at learning his 
absence without leave, and, "b am here, gentlemen," said he, 
"not brought back by any military power, but in obedience to the 
command of Mary, to abide the sentence of your court. " Ed- 
13 



i 9 4 ENTERTAINING Love. 

ward Cooper was found guilty of desertion, and sentenced to 
death, as it was the plain duty of the court, but Gen. Lee par- 
doned the prisoner. 



Poverty--Beauty--Riches and Royalty. 

Beauty is only skin deep, to be sure; nevertheless it is a 
dowry to be prized, and frequently proves a means of advance- 
ment. During the troubles in the reign of Charles I, a beautiful 
country girl came to London, in search of a place as a servant 
maid; but, not succeeding, she hired herself to carry beer from 
a brew house, and was one of those called tub-women. The 
brewer, observing a good-looking girl in this low occupation, 
took her into his family as a servant, and after a short time 
married her; but he died while she was yet a young woman, 
and left her the bulk of his fortune. The business of the brew- 
er was dropped, and to the young woman was recommended 
Mr. Hyde, a skillful lawyer, to arrange her husband's affairs. — 
Hyde, who was afterward the great Earl of Clarendon, finding 
the widow's fortune very considerable, married her. Of this 
marriage there was no. other issue than a daughter, who was 
afterward the wife of James II, and the mother of Mary and 
Anne, Queens of England. 



How a "Widowed Clergyman Married. 

A clergyman, a widower, recently created quite a sensation in 
his household, which consisted of seven grown up daughters. — 
The reverend gentleman was absent from home for a number 
of days, visiting in an adjoining county. The daughters received 
a letter from their father, which stated that he "had married a 
widow with six sprightly children, " and that he might be expect- 
ed home at a certain time. The effect of that news was a shock 
to the happy family. The girls, noted for their meekness and 
amiable temperaments, seemed another set of beings; there 
were weeping and wailing and tearing of hair, and all manner of 
naughty things said. The tidy home was neglected, and when 



Love. ANECDOTES. 195 

the day of arrival came, the house was anything but inviting. — 
At last the Rev. Mr. X came, but he was alone. He greet- 
ed his daughters as usual, and, as he viewed the neglected 
apartments, there was a merry twinkle in his eye. The daughters 
were nervous and evidently anxious. " At last the eldest daugh- 
ter mustered courage. "Where is our mother?" 

"In heaven," said the good man. 

"But where is the widow with six children whom you wrote 
you had married?" 

"Why, I married her to another man, my dears," he replied, 
delighted at the success of his joke. 



Choosing a Wife by Proxy. 

The following occurred on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa 
Fe Road : A gentleman traveling between Pueblo and Kansas 
City was engaged in conversation by a very intelligent but rough 
looking miner, who had been for four years an auriferous adven- 
turer in the San Juan country, and who had "struck it rich." He 
made no secret of the fact that his visit to a certain town in 
Michigan was for the purpose of marrying the "girl he left behind 
him," for whose comfort he had built and furnished a house high 
up among the snow capped mountains of Colorado. But this 
does not interest the reader as will the balance of the story. He 
left in San Juan, a partner, whom he describes "as square a man 
as ever struck a drill," with whom he had constantly labored 
three long years as mere "prospectors," and with whom he now 
held jointly one of the most valuable properties in their district. 
Jim, too, desired to go East, but their mutual interests made it 
impossible; he didn't know any one in particular East, but then 
he wanted to go. Jim was rather a bashful, reticent man, and 
did not like to tell even his partner the real purpose of his visit : 
but on the eve of the departure of the latter, the purpose of 
whose visit was known, Jim made the request, in dead earnest, 
that he bring him a wife. "Will you do it?" he was asked. — 
"Do it, you bet!" "Had he any instructions to give in regard to 



196 ENTERTAINING Love. 

the selection?" "Yes; he said, 'Harry, bring me a good, honest, 
sensible girl, what there's no foolishness or show about, — a girl 
what '11 make an honest man an honest wife,' and that's just the 
kind o' woman I'll take out, and the one that'll be Jim's wife." 
While this manner of choosing a wife is a somewhat novel one, it 
must be confessed that Jim's ideas of the woman best calculated 
to make with him the journey of life was a good one. 



Henry M. Stanley's Romance— The "Dark Conti- 
nent," the Back-ground of a Thrilling Picture. 

The following is from a New York journal : There are few 
men in the world to whom life should apparently be so pleasant 
.as to Henry M. Stanley. All England is ready to do him honor; 
he has been overwhelmed with praise and congratulations; the 
Queen has received him; Parliament has thanked him; the two 
great journals for which he has made his explorations have am- 
ply rewarded him. But he seems morose and discontented. 

Mr. Stanley has had a romance. Before he went upon his 
second expedition to Africa, he met and fell madly in love with 
a charming young lady, the daughter of a wealthy citizen of Jew- 
ish extraction, whose name, is perhaps best known in connection 
with the erection of an extensive but unfortunate opera-house. 
Mr. Stanley's passion was deep and violent, but he was told that 
at least he must wait, and that an immediate marriage was out 
of the question. He was anxious to win even greater fame and 
fortune and lay them at the feet of his beloved. It was at this 
moment that the second African expedition was proposed to 
him; in it he saw the coveted opportunity for distinction and 
reward, and he eagerly embraced the perilous commission. — 
Throughout the whole of that terrible journey through the 
jungles of Africa, and all his toils, dangers, sickness, and disap- 
pointments, he was sustained by the thought of his love, and by 
the confident hope of receiving the reward which was dearer 
to him than the applause of the. world or the riches of Golconda. 



Love. ANECDOTES. 197 

He gave the name of the young lady to the most beautiful lake 
which he discovered, as he gave it afterward to the handsome 
boat in which he made a portion of his exploration, — the Lady 
Alice. At length, the source of the Congo was found ; the great 
deed was accomplished, and Stanley returned with a proud and 
happy heart to the coast. At Zanzibar a packet of letters was 
awaiting him; and he hastened to open them, hoping to find 
some messages of love and affetion from the mistress of his soul. 
A fatal blow struck him. One of the letters contained the 

intelligence that Miss Alice- had been married several 

months. 

From that moment Stanley was a changed man. His delight 
in life was wholly lost. His natural good humor and buoyancy 
of spirit gave place to long fits of melancholy, alternated with 
violent outburts of petulance and anger. The plaudits with 
which he was received upon his arrival in England were 
distasteful to him; he revenged himself by attacking with un- 
reasonable rage every one who ventured to differ on even the 
slightest subject with him. 

This, hovever, was Mr. Stanley's second love affair. Chancing 
to be spending some time upon the Island of Crete, he saw from 
his window a young Greek maiden in the garden of the opposite 
house, and he at once felt that his fate was sealed. She was 
about fifteen years old, and Mr. Stanley has since declared that 
he never before nor since has he heheld so sweet and beautiful 
a creature. He at once sought out the American Consul and 
revealed to him the state of his heart. The Consul, who had 
himself married a Greek lady, bade him not despair, took him 
forthwith to the house of his inamorata and presented him to her 
mother, who was a widow. Stanley could speak no Greek, the 
mather no English; the Consul was the interpreter. He did his 
work so well that at the end of half an hour the young lady was 
sent for. Stanley was forbidden even to touch her hand; but he 
conversed with her by his eyes; they soon understood each oth- 
er well. At the end of a week he was an accepted lover; at the 
end of a fortnight the day for the wedding arrived. All this while 



198 ENTERTAINING Love. 

he had seen the young lady once a day, always in the presence 
of her mother. On the day before the wedding he had been 
permitted for the first time, to take her hand and to imprint upon 
it a chaste salute. The morning of the wedding arrived; Stanley 
was dressed for the ceremony, and was awaiting the happy mo- 
ment. There entered to him three Greeks, whom he had never 
seen before, and an interpreter. They are introduced as the 
brothers of the bride, and they produce a parchment which the 
interpreter explains. It is a deed of settlement which binds 
Stanley to pay so much a year to the mother, so much to each 
brother, and so much to the wife, and to plank down the first 
instalments on the spot. In vain Stanley explains that he is 
worth nothing and cannot pay; the brothers look daggers, the 
interpreter frowns, and the scene closes by the arrival of the 
Consul, who with difficulty gets Stanley out of the clutches of 
his tormentors and ships him off to Athens. He never saw his 
beautiful Grecian maiden again. 



An Erring Mother's Love for Her Child. 

The following incident occurred before a Canadian Police 
Court : A woman carrying a little infant is among the prisoners. 
The mother is only nineteen; the child is just learning to talk; 
the mother weeps bitterly; the child crows and claps its little 
hands as if the howling mob about it had been got up for its 
special benefit. It lifted a pair of handcuffs from the table and 
jingled them near its mother's ear, and laughed aloud in excess 
of joy. "O God!" cried the young mother, "let my babe go. — 
Send some good woman for it. O I can never take my babe 
into a cell. It is innocent. I am wicked. The child is fit for 
Heaven. It has never' sinned. O let it not be tainted with a 
cell. " She held it up before all present, her hair falling over her 
shoulders, and her hot, wild face quivering with agony. She 
held it high up, the little crowing, chirruping thing. It jingled 
the handcuffs and laughed. A hush fell on that place as if an 
angel's presence were there. A brazen-faced girl in silks and 



Love. ANECDOTES. 199 

satins came sweeping forward to take the child, but the mother 
snapped at her like a brutish animal and pushed her back. "O 
no, she hissed, "O no, no, no, no, — not you, not you." Chief 
McMenemy knows how to do his duty as well as any man, but 
he saw this was an extraordinary case and sent the baby home. 
The mother went into her cell holding her heart. She came 
rushing back and kissed her baby, and whispered in its ear, " It 
were better for you, my child, that you never saw me again. " — 
The child was carried away crying because they took the hand- 
cuffs from it. 



A Light in the Window. 

Off the coast of one the Orkney Islands, and right opposite 
the harbor, stood a lonely rock, against which, in stormy nights, 
the boats of returning fishermen often struck and were lost. 

Fifty years ago, there lived in this island a young girl in a cot- 
tage with her father; and they loved each other very tenderly. 
One stormy night the father was away on the sea in his fisher- 
man's boat, and, and though his daughter watched for him in 
much fear and trouble, he did not come home. Sad to tell, in 
the morning his dea,d body was found washed upon the beach. — 
His boat, as he sought the harbor, had struck against the "Lone- 
ly Rock" and gone down. 

In her deep sorrow, this fisherman's orphan did not think of 
herself alone. She was scarcely more than a child, humble, 
poor, and weak; but she said in her heart that while she lived no 
more boats should be lost on the "Lonely Rock," if a light shin- 
ing through her window would guide them safely into the 
harbor. And so, after watching by the body of her father, accord, 
ing to the custom of her people, until it was buried, she laid 
down and slept through the day; but when night fell, arose, and 
lighting a candle, placed it in the window of her cottage, so that 
it might be seen by any fisherman coming in from sea, and guide 
him safely into the harbor. She sat by the candle all night, and 
trimmed it, and spun; but when the day dawned she went to bed 
and slept. 



200 ENTERTAINING Love. 

As many hanks as she had spun before for her daily bread she 
spun still, and one over, to buy her nightly candle; and from 
that time to this, for fifty years, through youth, maturity, and old 
age, she has turned night into day, and in the snow-storms of 
winter, through driving mists, deceptive moonlight, and solemn 
darkness, that northern harbor has never once been without the 
light of her candle. 

How many lives she saved by this candle, and how many 
meals she has won by it for the starving families of the boatmen, 
it is impossible to say. How many dark nights the fishermen, 
depending on it, have gone forth, cannot now be told. There it 
stood, regular as a light house, steadily as constant care could 
make it. Always brighter when daylight waned, the fishermen 
had only to keep it constantly in view and were safe; there was 
but one thing to intercept it, and that was the Rock. However 
far they might have gone out to the sea, they had only to bear 
down for that lighted window, and they were sure of a safe en- 
trance to the harbor. 



Bird Love, 



A drake was stolen one night, with some other birds, from 
Mr. Beale's aviary. The beautiful male alone was taken, and 
the poor duck was left behind. The morning following the loss 
of her husband, the female was seen in a most disconsolate con- 
dition; brooding in secret sorrows, she remained in a retired part 
of the aviary, pondering over the severe loss she had just 
sustained. 

While she was thus delivering her soul to grief, a gay, prim 
drake, who had not long before lost his dear duck, which had 
been accidentally killed, trimmed his beautiful feathers, appeared 
quite handsame, and, pitying the forlorn condition of the be- 
reaved, waddled toward her, and, after devoting much of his 
time and all his attention to the unfortunate female, he offered 
her his protection. She, however, refused all his offers, having 
made, in audible quacks, a solemn vow to live and die a widow 
if her mate did not return. 




Mandarin or Bridal Duck. 



Love. ANECDOTES. 201 

From the day on which she met with her loss she neglected 
her usual avocations, forsook her food and usual scenes of 
delight, where she loved to roam with him now absent, and to 
excite his brave spirit to drive away all the rivals that might at- 
tempt even to approach them. But these fleeting hours of 
enjoyment had passed, perhaps never to return, and no conso- 
lation that could be offered by any of her tribe had the least 
effect. Every endeavor was made to recover the lost bird, as it 
was not expected that the beautiful creature would be killed. 

Some time elapsed after the loss, when a person accidentally 
passing a hut, overheard some Chinese of the lower class convers- 
ing together. He understood sufficient of their language to find 
out what they said, "It would be a pity to to kill so handsome a 
bird." "How, then," said another, "can we dispose of it?" — 
The hut was noted, as it was immediately suspected that the lost 
Mandarin drake was the subject of the conversation. A servant 
was sent, and, after some trouble, recovered the long lost drake 
by paying four dollars for him. He was then brought back to 
the aviary in one of the usual cane cages. 

As soon as the bird recognized the aviary, he expressed his 
joy by quacking vehemently and napping his wings. The interval 
of three weeks had elapsed since he was taken away by force; 
but when the forlorn duck heard the note of her long lost hus- 
band, she quacked, even to screaming with ecstacy, and flew as 
far as she could in the aviary to greet him on his restoration. — 
Being let out of the cage, the drake immediately entered the 
aviary, and the unfortunate couple were again united. They 
quacked, crossed necks, bathed together, and then are supposed 
to have related all their mutual hopes and fears during the long 
separation. 

One word more on the unfortunate widower who kindly 
offered consolation to the duck when overwhelmed with grief. — 
She, in a most ungrateful manner, informed her drake of the 
impudent and gallant proposals he made to her during his ab- 
sence. It is merely supposition that he did so; but, at all events, 
the result was that, on the day following his return, the recovered 



202 



ENTERTAINING Love. 



drake attacked the other, pecked his eyes out, and inflicted on 
him so many other injuries as to occasion his death in a few 
days. Thus did this unfortunate drake meet with a premature 
and violent death for his kindness and attention to a disconso- 
late lady. It may perhaps be correctly written over his grave, 
"A victim to conjugal fidelity." 



An Ingenious Mother. 

A lady once lamented an ill-advised attachment on the part 
of her daughter, who had good expectations, and whose affec- 
tions had been won by an adventurer. The mother had remon- 
strated against the folly of the engagement and had flatly refused 
to allow the wedding to take place so long as the girl was under 
age. The young lady was obstinate by nature, and her tenacity 
was strengthened by opposition. She avowed her intention of 
waiting patiently till she was of age, and then of giving her hand 
to her fiance. A year's delay did not seem to have undermined 
her attachment, and in another six months she would be of age, 
and her own mistress. Under advice the mother changed hei 
cue and appeared to make the best of a bad business. Since 

Captain meant to be son-in-law she said she would do what 

she could to make things pleasant. She asked him to dinner, 
and appeared to have fully accepted the engagement. 

She kept an eye on all in-coming and out-going letters, and 

would say, "My dear, you have not written to Captain for 

the last two days! When I was engaged to your father I used to 

write to him every day of the week. " Or, " Captain wrote 

to you yesterday, my dear, and I perceive that you have not yet 
answered him ; men do not like to be treated with neglect. " The 
girl got irritable under this incessant spurring into her' engage- 
ment; the mother followed up her advantage by offering her ad- 
monition audibly in the presence of other female friends of the 
daughter. This put the coup de grace to the engagement; the 
gilt all came off the gingerbread when opposition was changed to 
incitement. Two months before she came of age she wrote to 



Love. ANECDOTES. 203 

Captain and told him that her feelings had changed toward 

him. The mother affected to be deeply scandalized; this settled 
the girl's determination, and the Captain never darkened the 
door again. 



Two Yards Jaconet, or a Husband—James Gordon 
Bennett's Love Story. 

"I wish," said Mary Ann, "I had two yards of jaconet. I want 
it very much to complete this dress for the next birth-day at 
Richmond. I want besides a pretty large length of pea-green 
ribbon. I want a feather — a white feather — to my last bonnet. 
I W ant" 

"Well, my dear," said Louisa, her companion, "well, my dear, 
it seems you never have enough. Pray how many more things 
do you want besides?" 

"More!" returned Mary Ann, "why a hundred more, to be 
sure," said she, laughing; "but I'll name them all in one — I want 
a husband. " 

"Indeed !" said Louisa; this is the first time I ever heard you 
talk of such an article. Can't you select one from among your 
many admirers?" 

"A fig for my admirers! I'm tired — I'm sick, I'm disgusted 
with my admirers. All come and make silly compliments; one 

says, Miss B , how pretty you look to-day; another sickens 

me with his silly looks; another is so desperately in love with 
me that he can't talk; another is so desperately in love with him- 
self that he talks forever. Oh! I wish I were married! I wish I 
had a husband; or at least two yards of jaconet to finish the 
dress for the Richmond campaign. " 

Mary Ann B was a gay, young rattling creature who had 

lost her father and part of her heart at fourteen. She was now sev- 
enteen, possessed a fine figure, rather embonpoint; not tall, but 
very gracefully rounded off. Her profuse auburn ringlets clus- 
tered negligently round a pair of cheeks in which the pure red 
and white mingled so delicately that where the one began or the 



204 ENTERTAINING Love. 

other ended no one could tell. Her eyes were dark blue, but 
possessing a lustre when lighted up with feeling or enthusiasm 
which defied any one to distinguish them from burning black. — 
Her motions were light, airy and, graceful. Her foot and ankle 
were most elegantly formed; and her two small white hands, 
with soft, tapering fingers, were as aristocratic as could be im- 
agined by a Byron or an Ali Pasha. Since the death of her 
father, which was a period of about two years or more, she had 
had many admirers, several decided offers and not a few who had 
hoped, but durst not venture upon the fatal question. She 
laughed at their offers, and ridiculed her admirers, and protested 
she would never marry until she had brought at least an hundred 
to her feet. For several counties round up and down the James 
river she was quite a toast among the young planters. 

In those days the White Sulpher, the Blue Sulphur and Hot 
Sulphur Springs were not much frequented ; but the people of 
fashion in Lower Virginia, the wealthy planters, were just begin- 
ning to escape to the Blue mountains during the autumnal 
months. In one of those excursions the party, of which Mary 
Ann made a lively member, was overtaken one afternoon in a 
sudden rain-storm at the entrance of one of the gorges of the 
mountains. The party was traveling in an open carriage, with a 
sort of top resembling a gig, to spread out when a shower broke 
over them with sudden violence. On the present occasion the 
leather top afforded the ladies a very inadequate shelter from 
the dark, heavy clouds above. The first house they approached 
was therefore truly welcomed. They dismounted, went in and 
found several young gentlemen surrounding the hickory fire 
which was crackling merrily on a large, white hearth. 

A young man of rather modest, easy, but unobtrusive manners, 
rose at the approach of Mary Ann and offered her his chair. She 
accepted it with a slight inclination of the head and a quiet 
glance at his general appearance. Nothing remarkable took 
place at this interview; but a few days after, when they had 
reached the foot of one of the mountains, which was appro- 
priated as the place of gayety and fashion, the youag gentleman 



Love. ANECDOTES. 205 

was formally introduced to Mary Ann as Mr. C from Wil- 
liamsburg, in West Virginia. In a very short time he became a 
very devoted admirer of Mary Ann — was extremely and deli- 
cately attentive, and, of course, gave rise to many surmises 
among the match-makers of the Springs. At the close of the 
season he put forth his pretentions in form. He offered himself 
formally to Mary Ann. As usual, she spent a whole night think- 
ing, crying, deliberating, grieving, wondering, and next morning 
sent him a flat refusal. So this affair, which is a specimen of 
about thirty or forty she had managed in this way, was con- 
sidered closed beyond all hopes of revival. The parties never 
again met till the moment we have now reached threw them 
accidentally into each other's company. 

Since the period just referred to, Mary Ann had considerably 
altered in her feelings and her views. She had pursued the game 
of catching admirers, of leading them on to declare themselves, 
and of then rejecting with tears and regrets in abundance, till she 
and the whole world of young men became mutually disgusted 
with each other. Yet she had many excellent qualities — was a 
fast and enduring friend, knew as well as any one of the folly of 
her course of life; but her ambition, her love of conquest, her 
pride of talent, her desire of winning away the admirers of her 
female rivals, entirely clouded and obscured her more amiable 
qualities of mind and heart. 

"How long have you been in Williamsburg, Mary Ann?" 
asked her chere ami. 

"Only three days, and I have only picked up three beaux. 
What a dull place this is. It is called the 'classic shade' — the 'ac- 
ademic groves of the Old Dominion,' and all that sort of thing. 
One of the professors entertained me a good two hours, the 
other evening, with the laws of Dido and ^Eneas. I wish I had 
a couple of yards of jaconet. " 

"Or a husband—" 

"Or a husband, either; I don't care which. Come, my love, 
let's go a-shopping in this classic town. " 

The two ladies immediately rose — it was about noonday — put 



206 ENTERTAINING Love. 

on their bonnets, took their parasols and sallied forth. 

"For a husband or a jaconet, you say?" 

"Two yards of jaconet or a husband." 

The town of Williamsburg, like every other little town in Vir- 
ginia or New York, does not contain many stores. A shopping 
expedition is therefore soon completed. The two ladies sauntered 
into this shop, then into that, sometimes making the poor fellow 
of a shop-keeper turn out his whole stock in trade, and rewarding 
his pains by the purchase of a six-penny worth of tape. They 
had proceeded for an hour in this lounging, lazy style, when 
Louisa said: "O, Mary Ann, here is an old beau of yours in that 
store with the red gingham flapping at the door like a pirate's 
flag; come, let us go and plague him for 'auld lang syne,' as Mrs. 
McDonald, the Scotch lady of Norfolk, says." 

"Certainly," said Mary Ann, "but which of my old admirers 
is it?" 

"Have you got your list in your pocket?" 

"Not at all, I have it at my grandmother's in Richmond; what 
a pity." 

The two wild creatures bounding like a couple of fawns over 
a forest glade — for they were reckless of the public opinion 
among the old dowagers and staid maidens of Williamsburg — 
entered the store and asked for a sight of gloves, muslins and 
ribbons. Mary Ann did not seem to pay much attention to the 
fine articles shown her. She ever and anon cast her eyes by 
stealth round and round the store, endeavoring to discover if 
she recognized any of the faces as that of an acquaintance. — 
She could see nothing to repay the effort. Not a face had she ever 
seen before, She summoned up to her recollection all her for- 
mer admirers. They passed through her mind like the ghosts in 
"Macbeth;" for, notwithstanding her rejection of so many lov- 
ers, she ever retained a certain portion of regard for every poor 
fellow who had fallen a victim to her whim, beauty, witchery and 
caprice. 

"This is an Arabian desert," said Mary Ann, sighing, to Lou- 
isa, as she split a pair of kid gloves in endeavoring to get them on. 



Love. ANECDOTES. 207 

"Oh no," said the gay young shopman; "indeed, miss, they 
are the best French kid." 

"Pray," said Louisa, in a low tone, "don't you see anything in 
the back room of the store?" 

In a remote corner of the store there stood at the desk a plain- 
ly dressed gentleman, leaning over the corner of a wooden 
railing, with eyes firmly fixed upon the two ladies now so 
actively engaged in tossing over the counter all sorts of merchan- 
dise and light French goods. 

"As I live," said Mary Ann, "there is my old Blue Ridge 
beau. O! how wet I was," whispered she, "drenched with a 
summer shower, when first I was thrown into his society. I be- 
lieve the poor fellow loved me sincerely. Come, let us spend 
upon him at least ten dollars in jaconet; he spent one hundred 
dollars upon me in balls, dancing, cold, cough-drops and drives, 
and got nothing for his pains but a neat billet-doux declining his 
poor heart and soft hand. Poor fellow. " 

With this sally the ladies bought several articles, scarcely 
caring whether they suited them or not. When they left the store 
Mary Ann fell into a reverie, was quite silent, which for her was 
unusual and singular. Louisa's spirits, on the contrary, gathered 
life and energy as those of her companion sunk away. She 
talked, she laughed, she ridiculed her beaux, she rallied Mary 
Ann, and looking into her once melancholy face, said: "So, my 
love, you are caught at last. " 

"Caught, " said Mary Ann: "indeed you are mistaken. I do 
not think — that is to say, I fancy I should not like to marry my 
Blue Ridge beau. Oh! Louisa," said she, after a pause, with a 
tear in her eye, "what a foolish creature I have been. Mr. Col- 
lingwood, for that is his name, I am sure, quite sure, does not 
think of me; but I cannot remember the attentions he once 
paid me without a feeling of regret. " 

"Why! now what's the matter with you? After refusing so 
many, you are going to throw yourself away on a shop-keeper? 
A descendant of one of the most ancient families in Virginia to 
marry a shopkeeper!" 



2o8 ENTERTAINING Love. 

"Alas! alas! Louisa, what is descent? what is fashion? what 
is all the life I have led? Do you see that little white house 
with green Venetian blinds across the street? I was one evening 
in that house, and saw enough to satisfy me that I have been 
pursuing pleasure — not happiness. Oh, if I could only feel as 
that young wife does!" 

"You laugh. I am sure I do not think of Mr. Collingwood, 
but there was a time when his soft, quiet, affectionate manner did 
touch me most sensitively. " 

"Have you got the gloves you bought?" said Louisa. 

Mary Ann looked. She had forgotten them on the counter, 
or lost them. 

"We must return, then," said Louisa. 

"Never," said Mary Ann. "I never dare look at him. I am 
sure he despises me. Oh, if he only knew how I feel — what 
pangs pass through this heart — I am sure he would not. " 

"Come, come," said Louisa; "we must return and get the 
gloves. " 

"Never!" 

"Oh! the jaconet or a husband, most assuredly. You re- 
member your resolution when we set out?" 

Mary Ann smiled ; while her eye glistened with a tear. They 
returned home, however, and sent Cato, the colored servant, for 
the articles they had forgotten. 

After this adventure it was observed that a visible change came 
over the manners and spirits of Mary Ann. Her gay, brilliant 
sallies of wit and ridicule were moderated amazingly. She 
became quite pensive, singularly thoughtful for a girl of her un- 
usual flow of spirits. When Louisa rallied her on her shopping 
excursion, she replied, " Indeed, Louisa, I do not think I could 
marry Mr. Collingwood; besides, he has forgotten every feeling 
he may have entertained for me." In a few days after this event 
a party was given one evening at neighboring house. The 
family in which Mary Ann resided were all invited. The moment 
of reunion approached, and Mary Ann, dressed with great ele- 
gance, but far less splendor than usual, found herself at the head 






Love. ANECDOTES. 209 

of a cotillion, surrounded by several young gentlemen, students 
of William and Mary, professors, planters and merchants. They 
were pressing forward in every direction, talking and catching 
a word or a look from so celebrated a belle. Mary Ann, how- 
ever, did not appear to enjoy the group that surrounded her. 

She was shooting her dark blue eyes easily and negligently 
towards the entrance, as every new face came forward to see all 
the party. The music struck up, and, rallying her attention, 
she immediately stepped off on a dos-a-dos with that elegance 
and grace for which she was so particularly remarkable. At the 
close, as she stood up beside her partner, throwing a beautiful 
auburn ringlet back upon her white, round neck, her eye caught 
with sudden emotion a quiet, genteel-looking person, at the 
other end of the room. It was Mr. Collingwood. She immedi- 
ately dropped her eyes to the floor and looked very narrowly at 
her left foot as she moved it on the toe backwards and forwards, 
as it were, for want of thought or to divert her thoughts. In a 
few seconds she looked up in the same direction. Mr. Colling- 
wood still stood in the same position, watching every motion she 
made and every look she cast around her. She blushed, felt 
embarrassed, and went altogether wrong in the cotillion. 

" What in the world are you thinking of, " asked Louisa. 

"I scarcely know myself," said Mary Ann. 

In a few seconds the the cotillion was brought to a close, and 
Mary Ann's partner escorted her to a seat. Mr. Collingwood 
approached through the crowd and stood before her. 

"How is Miss !" asked Mr. Collingwood with suppressed 

emotion. 

Mary Ann muttered out a few words in reply. She dropped 
her glove. Mr. Collingwood picked it up. 

"This is not the first time you have lost a glove," said he with 
a smile. 

She received it and cast a look upon him of inconceivable 
sweetness. 

"Do you dance again, Miss ?" 

"I believe not; I am going home." 
14 



2 1 o ENTERTAINING Love. 

"Going home!" said he, "why, the amusments are scarcely 
begun. " 

"They are ended with me," said she, "for the night. I wish 
my servant would fetch my cloak and bonnet." 

"Oh, you can't be going home already?" 

"Indeed I am," said she. 

"Well," said he with a smile, "I know your positive temper of 
old. Allow me to get your cloak for you?" 

"Certainly." 

Mr. Collingwood left the room. Louisa and several other 
female friends gathered around her, persuading her on all sides 
not to leave the party ere it was begun. She would not remain. 
Mr. Collingwood appeared at the door. In the hall, for it 
was the fashion then and there to do so, Mr. Collingwood took 
her bonnet and put it on. 

Allow me, " said he, "to tie the strings. " She nodded assent, and 
Avhile he was tying the ribbons under her chin, he could not help 
touching her soft cheek. He was in ecstacy — she was quiet and 
resigned. He took the cloak — he unfolded it — he stood in front 
of her — their eyes met — both blushed — he pulled the cloak 
around her shoulders — he folded it around and around her bo- 
som. He trembled like a leaf; she trembled also. He pressed 
her warmly to his heart, whispering in her ear, "Oh, Mary Ann, 
If I may hope — yet indulge a hope?" For a moment they were 
left alone, her head sunk upon his breast. She could not speak, 
but her heart was like to burst. 

"Will I — dare I expect to be yet happy?" Their warm cheeks 
met; their lips realized it in one long, long, long respiration. 
They tore away from each other without another word — every- 
thing was perfectly understood between them. 

At this moment Mrs. Jamieson, the good lady of the mansion, 
approached and insisted that Mary Ann should not go so early. 
"It is really shameful, my dear," said she, "to think of leaving 
us at this hour. When I go to Richmond do I leave you thus 
abruptly? Why, Mr. Collingwood, can't you prevail upon her 
to stay a little longer?" 



■Love. ANECDOTES. 211 

He shook his head. "All my rhetoric has been exhausted," 
said, he, "and it has proved unavailing." 

Mary Ann looked at him very archly. 

"Well, now," continued the lady, "I insist upon your staying ; ,y 
and she forthwith proceeded to take off her bonnet, untie her 
cloak, and sent the servant with them into the side apartment. 
Mary Ann was unresisting. She was again led into the room. 
Collingwood danced with her all the evening. He escorted her 
home in the beautiful moonlight, and every now and then he 
pressed the cloak around her, with which she appeared not by 
any means to find fault. 

In about a month Mary Ann became Mrs. Collingwood, and 
immediately, as the parson had finished this great business of the 
evening, Louisa, who was one of her maids, whispered in her 
ear, "Two yards of jaconet or a husband." She smiled, and 
passed her arm around Louisa's waist. "Both, my love — both 
my love. Jaconet and a husband, a husband and jaconet." 



Selecting a "Wife in the Cars. 

On the whole, pleasant traits and characters are not common 
in the cars. This opinion I expressed to my friend Summers the 
other day. In reply to my remark he related a little adventure, 
which, as it is appropos, and moreover, involves a little love and 
sentiment, I give it without apology, in his own words. It 
appears that in the most unlikely places, love and sentiment may 
be discovered. 

"I was escorting home the lovely Charlotte , to whom at 

the time I was quite devoted. Charlotte could scarcely find 
room to spread her crinoline and arrange her voluminous flounces. 
I stood up near her, there being no vacant seat. 

"After a few minutes, came in a poor woman, who deposited 
a basket of clothes on the front platform, and held in her arms 
a small child, while a little girl hung to her dress. She looked 
tired and weary, but there was no vacant seat; to be sure Char- 
lotte might have condescended to contract her flounces, but she 



2i2 ENTERTAINING Love. 

did not. Beside her, however, sat a very lovely and elegant 
young woman, who seemed trying, by moving down closer to 
others, to make space enough for the stranger between herself 

and Miss D . At last she succeeded, and with the sweetest 

blush I ever saw she invited the poor female to be seated. Char- 
lotte D drew her drapery around her and blushed too, but 

it was not a pretty blush at all, and she looked annoyed at the 
proximity of the new comer, who was, however, clean and de- 
cently, though thinly clad. 

"The unknown lady drew the little girl upon her lap, and 
wrapped her velvet mantle around the small half-clad form, and 
put her muff over her half-frozen little hands. 

"So gieat was the crowd, that I alone seemed to observe. The 
child shivered — the keen wind from the door blew upon her un- 
protected neck. I saw the young lady quietly draw from under 
her shawl a little woolen shawl, which she softly put on the shoul- 
ders of the little one; the mother looked on with a confused 
wonder. After a short time she arose to leave the car, and 
would have removed the shawl, but the unknown gently whis- 
pered, "No, keep it for her." The woman did not answer, the 
conductor hurried her out, but her eyes swam with tears. I 
noticed as she descended to a basement, and I hastily remarked 
the house. 

" Soon after my unknown also arose to depart. I was in des- 
pair, for I wanted to follow and discover her residence, but 
could not leave Miss D . 

" How glad, then, I was to see her bowing, as she passed out 
to a mutual acquaintance who stood in the doorway. From him, 
ere many minutes, I learned her name and address. 

"To shorten the story as much as possible, that lady is now my 
wife. In the small incident which introduced her to me she 
showed her real character. A few days after our marriage I 
showed her the blessed crimson shawl, which I redeemed from 
its owner, and shall keep it as a memento. There are sometimes 
pleasant things to be found in unexpected places; certainly I 
may be said to have picked out my wife in the cars. " 



Love. ANECDOTES. 213 

— Flirtation is attention, without intention. 

— It was a woman who first prompted man to eat, but he took 
to drink of his own account afterwards. 

— Voltaire once said to a lady: "Your rivals are all the per- 
fection of art, but you are the perfection of nature." 

— Some women think they can do nothing without a husband, 
and when they get one, they can do nothing with him, 

— The solution of the question, whether woman is equal to 
man, depends upon who the woman is, and who the man is. 

— On a pretty girl saying to Leigh Hunt: "I am very sad you 
see," he replied. "Oh, no, you belong to the Jewish Sect, you are 
very /air I see. " 

— Upon a gay Lothair's marrying his young wife, she said : — 
"Now I hope you will mend." "You may depend on it," said 
he, "This is my last folly!" 

— If a lady says to you: "I can never love you," wait a little 
longer, all hope is not lost. But if she says: "No one has more 
sincere wishes for your happiness than I, " take your hat. 

— Sheridan's wife once displayed great indignation and assert- 
ed that her husband was a villain, because she had discovered 
that all the love letters he sent her were the very same as he sent 
his first wife. 

Dr. Franklin's mother-in-law hesitated at letting her daughter 
marry a printer, as there were then already two printing offices 
in the United States, and she was uncertain whether the country 
would support a third ! 

— The Prince of Conti and lover of Madame De BoufHers 
was greatly attached to the sex even when old. He did not 
succeed as well, however, and said, "It is time for me to retire; 
formerly my civilities were taken for declarations of love, but 
now my declarations of love are taken for civilities. 



214 ENTERTAINING Love. 

— When Wilberforce was a candidate for Parliament, his 
brilliant sister offered a new gown to the wife of every freeman 
who would vote for her brother, on which a cry was raised : 
"Miss Wilberforce forever." She replied, "I thank you, gen- 
tlemen, but I cannot agree with you. I do not wish to be Miss 
Wilberforce forever. " 

— "Martha, dost thou love me?" said a young Quaker. "Why 
Seth, we are commanded to love one another." "Ah Martha, 
but dost thou feel what the world calls love?" "I hardly know 
what to tell thee, Seth!" "I have tried to bestow my love 
upon all, but I have sometimes thought perhai s that thou wast 
getting more than thy share!" 

— Xenophon relates, that when an Armenian piince had been 
taken captive with his princess, by Cyrus, and was asked what 
he would give to be restored to his kingdom, he replied, "As for 
my kingdom and liberty I value them not, but if my blood would 
r edeem my princess, I would cheerfully give it for her. " When 
Cyrus had liberated them both, the princess was asked what she 
thought of Cyrus. "I did not see him," she said; "I noticed 
only him who offered to die for me. " 

— When Philip Henry, the father of the celebrated commenta- 
tor, sought the hand of the only daughter and heiress of Mrs. 
Mathews in marriage, an objection was made by her father, who 
admitted that he was a gentleman, a scholar, and an excellent 
preacher; but he was a stranger, and "they did not even know 
where he came from." "True," said the daughter, who had well 
weighed the excellent qualities arid graces of the stranger, "but 
I know where he is going, and I should like to go with him, " and 
they walked life's pilgrimage together. How honored would 
that reluctant father have been, could he have foreseen that his 
daughter would be the mother of Matthew Henry ! And how 
different would be the world's estimate of men, if they were 
judged less by their origin, and more by their destiny! 



ANECDOTES. 215 



MARVELOUS STORIES. 



A Fortunate Presentiment. 

In March 1878, while the ill-fated United States steamer 
Huron was lying in the harbor of Port Royal. S. C, Lieut. Ar- 
thur H. Fletcher, her executive officer, left the vessel on a 
twenty-four hours' leave of absence, and, failing to return at the 
expiration of that time, the ship sailed for another port without 
him. A few days after Mr. Fletcher returned to Port Royal, 
reported to Commodore J. H. B. Clitz, "senior naval officer 
present, " and stated to him that for some time past he had a 
presentiment that, if he went to sea in the Huron for the pur- 
pose of finishing the cruise, (two years,) he would be wrecked. 
This feeling took complete possession of his mind, and he used 
every means to get detached, but the Navy Department refused 
to order it without a better reason. When he found that all his 
efforts had failed, he left the Huron in the manner stated, with 
the intention not to return. For this he was placed under arrest, 
and tried by court-martial at Washington Navy Yard in August 
last. In defense he made a statement, in substance as above, 
and called Commodore Clitz, Commander George P. Ryan of 
the Huron, and other officers, to prove that, before leaving the 
ship, he told them of the dread — in fact horror — he had of finish- 
ing the cruise in the vessel. This is a matter of record, on file 
in the Navy Department, and though such a line of defense was 
laughed at when made, the fate of the Huron will cause many 
superstitious people to think that Mr. Fletcher's premonition 
was fully proven to be a true one by the wreck at Kitty 
Hawk, N. C. 



216 ENTERTAINING Marvelous. 

A Strange Story. 

Thirty-three years ago a family named Benton, consisting of 
father, mother, son and daughter, resided in one of the Western 
States near a small town called Blank. The father was wealthy 
and lived in style, and his daughter Mabel, a child between two 
and three years of age, was always elegantly dressed, and George, 
the son, a boy of seven, was preparing to enter an Eastern 
school. One day little Mabel disappeared, and her parents never 
heard of her again, although they spent thousands of dollars in 
searching for her. The heart-broken mother died soon after the 
loss of her darling, and the father wandered over this country 
and Europe, and finally settled in New York, where he died. 
George grew to manhood, and the memory of his lost sister was 
almost effaced from his mind. In his twenty-seventh year, while 
visiting a married friend, he fell in love with the governess of his 
friend's children, a beautiful girl of about twenty-three, and after 
some months they were married and lived happily for five or six 
years, a boy and girl being born to them during that time. 

By the death of an uncle in San Francisco George was left a 
considerable fortune, and the lawyer who conveyed the intelli- 
gence to him also stated that his sister's career had been traced. 
A tramp on his beath-bed in a St. Louis police-station confessed 
that he and two companions had stolen little Mabel for her 
clothes and a locket which she wore, and that she had continued 
with them for several years, when her bright, pretty face attracted 
the attention of a kind-hearted lady in Ohio, who adopted her 
and sent her to school, where she remained until her patroness 
died. Mabel then became a teacher in a large school in Cin- 
cinnati, but as her health began to fail she applied for a position 
as governess, and was now in the family of Mr. M., or at least 
that was the last place he had heard of her being in. 

"What was the name of the family she was with?" asked 
George. 

"M ," was the answer. 

"What name did my sister have?" 



Marvelous. ANECDOTES. 217 

"Mabel Ferris." 

"My God!" cried George, in agony. "She has been my wife 
for five years. " 

Upon further investigation this proved to be the truth, and the 
girl nearly went crazy, as she was a devout Episcopalian. A 
separation ensued, all property being equally divided. The chil- 
dren were placed with friends, as neither parent could bear the 
sight of what was to them the fruit of a crime against God and 
man. The poor girl is still living in a quiet city in New England, 
while the husband and brother, after spending all his property 
save a few hundred dollars in dissipation, shut himself off from 
all communication with his friends, and is to-day a poor farmer 
in the county of Garrett, among strangers, and where few know 
his sadly remarkable story. 



Singular Phenomenon. 

There has been found, says a California journal, a pair of field 
glasses in the desert near what is known as Death's Valley. The 
glasses are supposed to have belonged to Hahn, a lost guide of 
Wheeler's Expedition. They were brought into one of the inte- 
rior towns by an Indian, and purchased from him. The most 
singular fact connected with them is that every object within 
range of where the glasses had been lying for a year or more is 
distinctly photographed upon them. We have heard of such phe- 
nomena before, but this is one of the most remarkable instances 
we remember. Both object glasses are covered with perfect and 
beautiful photographs or etchings of desert shrubs, stems, branches, 
leaf-stalks. Leaves and leaflets are distinctly marked as if laid 
on by a master hand. There is no mixture or confusion of one 
plant with another, each plant having a clear border of unmarked 
glass, rendering it probable that the sun or lightning photograph, 
or whatever it may be, was received through the eye-glass. 
These pictures seem to occupy a position about the center of 
each of the object glasses, but a little nearer the plane than the 
convex side. 



218 ENTERTAINING Marvelous. 

How Great Men Escaped. 

Some years ago a young man holding a subordinate position 
in the East India Company's service twice attempted to deprive 
himself of life by snapping a loaded pistol at his head. Each 
time the pistol missed fire. A friend entering his room shortly 
afterward, he requested him to fire it out of the window. It then 
went off without any difficulty. Satisfied that the weapon had 
been duly primed and loaded, the young man sprang up, exclaim- 
ing; "I must be preserved for something great," and from that 
moment gave up the idea of suicide, which for some time pre- 
vious had been uppermost in his thoughts. That young man 
afterward became Lord Clive. 

Bancon, the sculptor, when a boy five years old, fell into a pit 
of a soap boiler, and must have perished, had not a workman, 
just entering the yard, observed the top of his head. 

• When Oliver Cromwell was an infant a monkey snatched him 
from his cradle, leaped with him from a garret-window, and ran 
with him along the leads of the house. The utmost alarm was 
excited among the inmates, and various devices were used to 
rescue the child from the guardianship of his newly-found pro- 
tector. All was unavailing, his would-be rescuers had lost cour- 
age, and were in despair of ever seeing the baby alive again ; 
when the monkey quietly retraced his steps, and deposited his 
burden quietly upon the bed. On a subsequent occasion the 
water had well-nigh quenched his unsatiable ambition. He fell 
into a deep pond, from drowning in which a clergyman was the 
sole instrument of his rescue. 

Doddridge, when born, was so weakly an infant he was be- 
lieved to be dead. A nurse standing by believed she saw signs 
of vitality. Thus the feeble spark of life was saved from being 
extinguished, and an eminent author preserved to the world. 

Many years have now elapsed since three subalterns might 
have been seen struggling in the water off St. Helena, one of 
them peculiarly helpless. He was saved to live as Arthur 
Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. 

The life of John Newton is but a history of marvelous deliv- 



Marvelous. ANECDOTES. 219 

erances. As a youth he had agreed to accompany some friends 
on board of a man-of-war. He arrived too late; the boat in 
which his friends had gone was capsized and all its occupants 
drowned. On another occasion, when tide-surveyor in the port 
of Liverpool, some business had detained him, to the great sur- 
prise of those who were in the habit of observing his undevi- 
ating punctuality. He went out in the boat, as heretofore, to 
inspect a ship, which blew up before he reached her. Had he 
left the shore a few minutes sooner, he must have perished with 
the rest on board. 



"Whimsicalities of Insanity. 

A literary gentleman of some celebrity, who, in consequence 
of a slight affection of the brain, was for several months an 
inmate of an insane asylum in Scotland, has recently published 
his "impressions" of life therein. He says that one of the most 
singular of his fellow-sufferers was a gentleman who was a very 
beautiful billiard-player, an old inmate of the house, and quite 
a psychological study. He seemed like a man in a waking 
dream, and historical events and personages, from the dream- 
land of his memory, were perpetually mirrored on his brain. He 
complimented the writer by supposing him to be four thousand 
years old, and considered the events and persons of the present 
generation unworthy of notice. The following is a specimen of 

his extraordinary reminiscences. "O, yes, Mr. , I knew very 

well. There were two Noahs whom I knew, but old Mr. Noah 
lived some thousand years before the Noah you refer to who built 
the ark. I had a good deal to do with the construction of the 
ark, and furnished some very useful hints in regard to the ad- 
mission of air and light, and so forth. He was a very respect- 
able man, Noah, with a decent family, but unfortunately he got 
into very dissipated habits in his old age, and in spite of all I 
could say to him, he indulged in wine to a very hurtful excess. 
Julius Caesar was a very clever man with a bald forehead; but I 
was more intimate with Alexander the Great, of Macedonia, as 
I was long in the military profession myself. I one time com- 



220 ENTERTAINING Marvelous. 

manded three battalions of men about three-quarters of an inch 
tall. No; they were not Lilliputians. I knew Captain Gulliver 
very well. And they were smart enough little fellows; but my 
men were excellent marksmen — they always aimed at the eyes and 

never missed. I'll tell you Mr. , the most extraordinary thing 

you ever heard, which beats railroads. I was once transported 
from the farthest shores of India to the center of Africa in three 
minutes! By what means?" he repeated in reply to a question 
respecting his method of transit. — "By a bomb!" In reply to 
my remark on the danger of being wafted so rapidly over vast 
oceans, he continued: "Yes; it was attended with considerable 
danger. I once came down souse into the ocean; but fortu- 
nately I hailed a veessel which came to my relief, and I pursued 
my journey to the wilds of Africa with the loss of only two min- 
utes. " Sometimes, however, the poor gentleman would seem 
doubtful of his own veracity, or the strength of his memory, and 
remark : "My memory is not so good as it was, and my health for 
the last hundred years has rather failed me, which makes my head 
a little confused. " And thus he moves about in his waking 
dream, wearing out his existence between his pipe and a game 
of billiards, diversified occasionally by a short excursion in the 
neighborhood in charge of an attendant. 



The Phantom Whistle. 

Two singular incidents, which will furnish nuts for unbelievers 
to crack in the supernatural, have recently come to light in 
England in regard to the recent loss of the Avalanche in the 
British Channel. A lad, who was a great friend of one of the 
apprentices who was lost, made arrangements to accompany him 
down the channel and came ashore with the pilot, but at the last 
moment before sailing he was seized with such an indefinable 
and ungovernable misgiving that he declined to go, and thus 
escaped almost certain death. The apprentice who was lost had 
a retriever dog who was very fond of him, and which answered 
to a shrill dog-whistle that he carried. On the the night of the 
shipwreck his mother and aunt were in the sitting-room, and the 



Marvelous. ANECDOTES. 221 

dog in the kitchen. Between nine and ten o'clock the ladies were 
startled by hearing a shrill whistle up-stairs, in sound resembling 
that of the dog-whistle used by the young man. The dog heard 
it also, gave his usual recognizing bark, and bounded up stairs, 
where he supposed his master was. The whistle was heard just 
about the the time the Avalanche went down, and it was heard 
by two credible witnesses, whose testiomony was confirmed by 
the response made to it by the dog of the lost sailor. 



Taking Advantage of Misfortune. 

A quarter of a century ago there was a memorable confla- 
gration at Sacramento City, Cal., by which the entire business 
portion of the city was laid in ashes. When the great fire was 
at its maximum of fury, a wealthy merchant named McNulty, 
who owned some of the heaviest business establishments in the 
city, gazed for a few moments upon the work of destruction, and 
then, instead of folding his hands and weeping over the disaster, 
he went to the nearest livery stable, hired a fleet-footed horse, 
rode like John Gilpin during the remainder of the night, and 
before daylight the next morning had purchased every foot of 
lumber and every sawmill at Grass Valley and Nevada City. — 
There is, possibly, no human being, on earth who would think of 
running off by the light of his burning property in order to 
literally make his fortune out of the disaster except an American. 
McNulty did so, however, and almost immediately realized out of 
the sale of his lumber fourfold as much as he had lost by the 
great fire. 

How a Madman Recovered. 

A famous watchmaker of Paris, infatuated for a long time with 
the chimera of the perpetual motion, became violently insane 
from the overwhelming terror which the storms of the Revolu- 
tion excited. The derangement of his reason was marked with 
singular trait. He was persuaded that he had lost his head on 
the scaffold, and that it was put in a heap with those of many 



222 ENTERTAINING Marvelous. 

other victims; but that the Judges by a rather too late retrac- 
tion of their cruel decree, had ordered the heads to be resumed, 
and to be rejoined to their respective bodies. 

He, however, conceived that by a curious kind of mistake he 
had the head of one of his companions placed on his shoulders. 
He was admitted into Bicetro; where he was continually com- 
plaining of his misfortune, and lamenting the fine teeth and 
wholesome breath he had exchanged for those of different quali- 
ties. In a little time the hopes of discovering the perpetual 
motion returned, and he was rather encouraged than restrained 
in his endeavors to effect his object. When he conceived that 
he had accomplished it, and was in all ecstacy of joy, the sudden 
confusion of a failure removed his inclination to resume the 
subject. 

He was still, however, possessed with the idea that his head 
was not his own, bnt from this notion he was diverted by a rep- 
artee made by him when he happened to be defending the 
possibility of the miracle of St. Denis, who, it is said, was in 
the habit of walking with his head between his hands, and in that 
position continually kissing it. 

"What a fool you are to believe such a story," it was replied 
with a burst of laughter. " How could St. Dennis kiss his head ? 
Was it with his heels?" 

This unanswerable and unexpected retort struck and confoun- 
ded the madman so much that it prevented him from saying any- 
thing further on the subject. He again took himself to business, 
and entirely regained his intellect. 



Mary Anderson's Dream. 

A very curious circumstance is related of Miss Mary Ander- 
son, the actress, which decided her choice of a profession and 
her entrance upon it. She sought an interview with Charlotte 
Cushman at Cincinnati, and was accorded "five minutes," Miss 
Cushman doubtless anticipating that in that time she could sat- 
isfy herself that her caller was only another stage-struck girl to 
be remanded to private life. Their interview, however was pro- 



Marvelous. ANECDOTES. 223 

longed to over three hours, during which Miss Cushman tested 
the young Kentucky girl's abilities in many ways, and gave her 
much good advice as to methods of study for the dramatic ca- 
reer, upon which she pronounced her competent to enter at 
once. This was in February. Miss Cushman died a few 
months later, and it is a coincidence that the day she died was 
the same on which Miss Anderson attended her first rehearsal 
under a regular professional engagement. That very night Miss 
Anderson had a strange dream, the impressions of which are in- 
effacable. In her vision she found herself in Boston, in a room 
in which Charlotte Cushman lay dead in her coffin with a laurel 
crown upon her head. As she approached the coffin she heard 
Miss Cushman's well-known voice exclaim, "Play Medea," and 
soon the dead tragedienne rose from her casket dressed in the 
costume of that Queen of the Argonauts, and walked to and 
fro in the room with all her olden majesty, ever and anon ex- 
claiming, "Play Medea, " and as the vision faded away the echoes 
of those deep tones resounded in her ears, "Play Medea." Miss 
Anderson has never yet, we believe, assumed this role, being 
firmly resolved never to play any character wherein she has to 
identify herself with women whose influence was corrupting. 
"Lady Macbeth" is the only possible exception she has made to 
this, and in her case Nemesis comes so quickly that there is no 
danger that any one should imitate her in crime. 



Treasure Trove. 



Curious discoveries by plowmen, quarrymen and others of 
caves, coins, urns and other interesting things, would fill vol- 
umes. Many valuable literary relics have been preserved by 
curious accidents, often turning up just in time to save them 
from crumbling to pieces. Not only mineral but literary treasures 
have been brought to light when excavating mother earth. For 
instance, in the foundations of an old house "Luther's Table 
Talk" was discovered, lying in a deep, obscure hole, wrapped in 
strong linen cloth, which was waxed all over with beeswax within 



224 ENTERTAINING Marvelous. 

and without. There it had remained hidden ever since its sup- 
pression by Pope Gregory XIII. The poems of Propertius, a 
Roman poet, long lurked unsuspected in the darkness of a wine 
cellar, from whence they were at length unearthed by accident, 
just in time to preserve them from destruction by rats and mil- 
dew. Not only from beneath our feet, but from above our 
heads, may chance reveal the hiding-places of treasure trove. 
The sudden falling-in of a ceiling, for example, of some cham- 
bers in Lincoln's Inn revealed the secret depository of the Thur- 
loe state papers. Other literary treasures have turned up in an 
equally curious manner. Milton's essay on the "Doctrines of 
Christianity" was discovered in a bundle of old dispatches; a 
monk found the only manuscript of Tacitus accidentally in Wes- 
phalia; the letters of Lady Mary Montague were brought to 
light from the recesses of an old trunk; the manuscripts of Dr. 
Dee from the drawer of an old chest ; and it is said that one of 
the cantos of Dante's great poem was found, after being long 
mislaid, hidden away beneath a window-sill. 



Curiosities of Etiqutte. 

The rules of Etiquette are as old as society and as varied as 
are the races of people who inhabit the earth. As a rule, prob- 
ably, it may be safely set down that the ruder the people the 
more absolute are the codes of manners. The punctilious eti- 
quette observed in Spain, where a woman dares not sit Avith her 
legs crossed, and where a monarch hardly feels at liberty to put 
on his shirt without the permission of the Chamberlain, has long 
been the wonder of less formal people. It is not so very many 
years since Spanish ladies were not allowed to eat, at the same 
table with their husbands. But this fine breeding is outdone by 
the Bulgarians. The newly married wife in Bulgaria dares not 
speak to her husband for a month or more. The prohibition 
used to last nine months. She is relieved from her obligation 
of silence when her lord presents her with a gift. Among the 
CatTres of South Africa the women are not allowed to mention 



Marvelous. ANECDOTES. 225 

the name of their father-in-law, and they must hide themselves 
when they meet their sons-in-law. This delicacy about calling 
names is extended to the parliamentary practice of civilized 
people. In the Legislature it is the height of impropriety to call 
an honorable member by his right name, although the custom is 
found to be a very convenient one in ordinary life. In New 
Caledonia the names of natural objects are given to children- 
but if the child dies the relatives must no longer call the natural 
object by its former name. A new appellation has to be in- 
vented for use in that particular family. The custom gives a re- 
markable variety to the New Caledonian dialect, and tasks the 
invention of parents who are so unfortunate as to lose their 
offspring. On "tabu days" in the South Sea Islands, any one 
who makes a noise must die. This regulation is as bad as any 
of the Connecticut blue laws. But there is hardly any form 
of etiquette that has survived to do duty in polite society but 
has its origin in some of the grosser observances of antiquity. 



A Musical Mountain in Nevada. 

A gentleman who has been taking a look among the old aban- 
doned mines in Truckee district, in Nevada, made a critical ex- 
amination of the musical mountain, of which a good deal was 
heard some years ago, when the mines were first discovered. 
Some of the early miners pitched their tents at the foot of the 
mountain, and were not a little surprised and puzzled at hearing 
during the quiet hours of the night, tinkling sounds that seemed 
to pervade the whole atmosphere, coming from they could not 
tell where. The sounds were not unlike those of a small music- 
box. At times they supposed that the sounds were caused by 
the wind playing among the twigs on the side of the mountain, 
but they found that this solution would not answer, as the same 
bushes were found everywhere, while the musical sounds were 
heard nowhere else than on the side of the mountain, at the foot 
of which they were camped. They spent much time in scouting 
about and listening of nights and quiet hours during the day, 
15 



226 ' ENTERTAINING Marvelous. 

and at last tracked the strange sound to a great bed of small 
pieces of rock that covered the slope of the mountain. These 
bits of rock were found to be quite sonorous, and the miners 
concluded that the sounds were caused by the action of the wind 
among them. The gentleman who recently visited the moun- 
tain says he went to it expecting to find it a good deal of a hum- 
bug, but found it much more of a curiosity than he had antici- 
pated; the mingled tinklings much resemble those of an seolian 
harp and frequently attaining a startling degree of loudness and 
distinctness. The sounds seem to rise and fall, approach and 
recede, as though caused or governed by the wind. On a close 
examination it was found that the small flakes of rock covering 
the face of the mountain contain a large per cent, of iron. This 
iron is supposed to be magnetic, and there appears to be a con- 
tant motion among the chips of it, which appear to cover the 
ground to the depth of several feet in many places. The whole 
drift of broken rock seems to be moving down the slope of the 
mountain with the slow, creeping motion of a glacier, and the 
slipping over each other of the fragments composing the mass 
is thought to cause the tinkling sounds, which are so numerous 
as to mingle and rise into a single strong musical murmur. 



The Swamp Angel. 

Sergeant Feller, of the New York Volunteer Engineers, sug- 
gested the name of "Swamp Angel" for the battery built in 
the marsh between Morris and James Islands, memorable in the 
siege of Charleston — its construction being the suggestion of 
Col. Surrell, of the same regiment. The marsh thereabouts was 
sixteen feet deep, as soundings with a pole showed, and the 
Lieutenant to whom the work was confided at first gave it up as 
impracticable, and having been directed to call for anything he 
might deem necessary for the work, made a requisition on the 
Quartermaster for one hundred men eighteen feet high to wade 
through mud sixteen feet deep, and immediately called on the 
surgeon of his regiment and inquired if he could splice the men 



Marvelous. ANECDOTES. 227 

if furnished. This piece of pleasantry cost the Lieutenant his 
arrest, and the battery was built of five thousand dollars worth 
of sandbags on a heavy foundation of logs, the work occupying 
fifteen days, or rather nights. The gun mounted was a two hun- 
dred pounder, a Parrot; the distance from Charleston was five 
miles, and the gun was fired at an elevation of thirty-five degrees. 
The strain on it was s\ich that it burst at the thirty-fourth' dis- 
charge. The "Greek fire," of which so much was said, was the 
greatest humbug of the war. Three shells, filled with ordinary 
port-fire, was were fired into the City of Charleston ; but every 
thing beyond this was due to the fancy of sensational correspon- 
dents. 



Dying Words. 



"It is well. "—Washington. 

"I must sleep now." — Byron. 

"Kiss me, Hardy." — Nelson. 

"Head of the army." — Napoleon. 

"Don't give up the ship." — Lawrence. 

"Let the light enter." — Goethe. 

"Into thy hands, O Lord." — Tasso. 

"Independence forever. " — Adams. 

"The artery ceases to beat." — Haller. 

"Is this your fidelity?" — Nero. 

"God preserve the Emperor." — Haydn. 

"It is the last of earth.": — J. Q. Adams. 

"Give Dayroles a chair." — Lord Chesterfield. 

"A dying man does nothing well." — Franklin. 

"Let not poor Nelly starve." — Charles II. 

"What! is there no bribing death?" — Cardinal Beaufort. 

"All my possessions for a moment of time. " — Queen Elizabeth. 

"It matters little how the head lieth. " — Sir Walter Raleigh. 

"Clasp my hand, my dear friend. I die-" — Alfieri. 

"I feel as if I were to be myself again." — Sir Walter Scott. 

"Let me die to the sound of delicious music." — Mirabeau. 



228 ENTERTAINING Marvelous. 

How She Felt at the Bottom of the River. 

A young lady at Fredericton, N. H., had a narrow escape from 
drowning recently. She fell over a wharf, and sunk a third time, 
and lay on the bottom of the river when a Mr. Orr put down a 
pole and fortunately touched her. She describes her sensations 
as not unpleasant; could distinctly see the people on the wharf, 
and wondered why they did not assist her; saw the pole coming 
down, and imagined it of immense size and length; the moment 
it touched her she grasped it, and says she could have climbed 
to the moon on it. Mr. Orr says she came up the pole like a 
squirrel. 

A California Mining Story. 

Not many miles from Shasta City is the gulch, of which th e 
following mining story is told : It is a pretty deep ravine, with 
rocks showing all the way up the sides. Gold in paying quanti- 
ties had been found along the stream, but it seemed to disappear 
a few feet from the channel. One day, whilst a gang of busy 
men were toiling in the stream, a stranger, evidenty ignorant of 
mining, came along and leaned on ragged elbows to watch, 
with protruding eyes, the results of their toil. The miners near 
him took out a five dollar nugget, and anxiety overcame the 
ignorant stranger. "S-a-a-y, " he asked, "where can I go to dig- 
gin' to find it like that?" The hardy miner stopped his work, 
and giving the wink to all the boys, so that the joke should not 
be lost, pointed up on the barren rocks where no gold had ever 
been found. "Ye see thet rough-lookin' place?" "Yes, yes," 
said the new hand. "Well, thar it is rich. Jes ye stake out a 
claim, an' go to work, and when we finish here, we'll come up 
too." Then the new hand thanked the honest miner, and the 
boys all grinned appreciation of the joke. That afternoon there 
was a solitary figure picking away on the slope, and every time 
the miners looked up they roared with laughter. But about the 
next day the new miner struck a pocket, and took out some- 
thing like thirty thousand dollars in a few minutes. Then, inno- 



Marvelous. ANECDOTES. 229 

cent to the last, he treated all around, and thanked the miner 
who sent him up there, and took his money, and went down into 
the valley, and bought him a farm. Then the unhappy miners 
arose, leaving their old claims, and dotted that hillside for days. 
But there were no more pockets anywhere. The whole thing 
reads just like the traditional fairy story. But then, I saw the 
gulch. Much more unbelieveable things have happened in the 
mines. 



What Dying People See. 

Frances Power Cobbe, who has devoted much study to what 
people on their death-bed say they see, gives to the world the 
following remarkable instances. She says : 

A few narrations of such observations, chosen from a great 
number which have been communicated to the writer, will serve 
to show more exactly the point which it is desired should be 
established by a larger concurrence of testimony. The following 
are given in the words of a friend on whose accuracy every 
reliance can be placed : 

"I have heard numberless instances of dying persons showing 
unmistakably by their gestures, and sometimes by their words, 
what they see in the moment of dissolution what could not be 
seen by those around them. On three occasions facts of this 
nature came distinctly within my own knowledge, and I will 
therefore, limit myself to a detail of that which I can give on my 
own authority, although the circumstances were not so striking 
as many others known to me, which I believe to be equally 
true. 

"I was watching one night beside a poor man dying of con- 
sumption; his case was hopeless, but there was no appearance 
of the end being very near; he was in full possession of his 
senses, able to talk with a strong voice, and not in the least 
drowsy. He had slept through the day, and was so wakeful that 
I had been conversing with him on ordinary subjects to while 
away the long hours. Suddenly, while we were thus talking 



230 ENTERTAINING Marvelous. 

quietly together, he became silent, and fixed his eyes on one 
particular spot in the room, which was entirely vacant, even of 
furniture. At the the same time a look of the greatest delight 
changed the whole expression of his face and, after a moment 
of what seemed to be intense scrutiny, he said to me, in a joy- 
ous tone : 'There is Jim.' Jim was a little son whom he had lost 
the year before, and whom I had known well; but the dying 
man had a son still living, named John, for whom he had sent, 
and I concluded it was of John he was speaking, and that he 
thought he heard him arriving so I answered: 

'No; John has not been able to come.' 

The man turned to me impatiently, and said: T do not mean 
John, I know he is not here; it is Jim, my little lame Jim; sure- 
ly you remember him.' 

" 'Yes,' I said, T remember dear little Jim, who died last 
year, quite well.' 

" 'Don't you see him, there ! There he is,' said the man, point- 
ing to the vacant place on which his eyes were fixed, and when I 
did not answer, he repeated almost fretfully, 'Don't you see him 
standing there?' 

"I answered that I could not see him, though I felt perfectly 
convinced that something was visible to the sick man which I 
could not perceive. When I gave him this answer he seemed 
quite amazed, and turned around to look at me with a glance of 
indignation. As his eyes met mine, I saw that a film seemed to 
pass over them, the light of intelligence died away, he gave a 
gentle sigh and expired. He did not live five minutes from the 
time he first said 'There's Jim,' although there had been no sign 
of approaching death previous to that moment. 

"The second case was that of a boy about fourteen years of 
age, dying also of decline. He was a refined, highly educated 
child, who throughout his long illness had looked forward with 
much hope and longing to the new life to which he believed he 
was hastening. On a bright summer morning it became evident 
that he had reached his last hour. He lost the power of speech, 
chiefly from weakness, but he was perfectly sensible, and made 



Marvelous. ANECDOTES. 231 

his wishes known to us by his intelligent looks. He was sitting 
propped up in bed, and had been looking rather sadly at the 
bright sunshine playing on the trees outside the open window for 
some time. He had turned away from this scene, however, and 
was facing the end of the room, where there was nothing whatever 
but a closed door, when all in a moment the whole expression 
of his face changed to one of the most wonderful rapture, which 
made his half-closed eyes open to their utmost extent, while his 
lips parted with a smile of ecstacy; it was impossible to doubt 
that some glorious sight was visible to him, and from the 
movement of his eyes it was*plain that it was not one, but many 
objects on which he gazed, for his looks passed from end to 
end of what seemed to be the vacant wall before him, v going 
backward and forward with ever-increasing delight manifested in 
his whole aspect. His mother then asked him if what he saw 
was some wonderful sight beyond the confines of this world, to 
give her a token that it was so by pressing her hand. He at 
once took her hand and pressed it meaningly, giving thereby an 
affirmative to her question, though unable to speak. As he did 
so a change passed over his face, his eyes closed, and in few 
moments he was gone. 

"The third case, which was that of my own brother, was very 
similar to the last. He was an elderly man, dying of a painful 
disease, but one which never for a moment obscured his facul- 
ties. Although it was known to be incurable, he had been told 
that he might live some months, when somewhat suddenly the 
summons came on a dark January morning. It had been seen 
in the course of the night that he had been sinking, but for some 
time he had been perfectly motionless, apparently in a state of 
stupor; his eyes closed, and his breathing was scarcely perceptible. 
As the tardy dawn of the winter morning revealed the rigid 
features of the countenance from which life and intelligence 
seemed to have quite departed, those who watched him felt un- 
certain whether he still lived; but suddenly, while they bent 
over him to ascertain the truth he opened his eyes wide, and 
gazed eagerly upward with such an unmistakable expression of 



232 ENTERTAINING Marvelous. 

wonder and joy that a thrill of awe passed through all who 
witnessed it. His whole face grew bright with a strange gladness, 
while the eloquent eyes seemed literally to shine as if reflecting 
some light on which ttjey gazed; he remained in this attitude Of 
delighted surprise for some minutes, then in a moment the eye- 
lids fell, his head drooped forward, and with one long breath the 
spirit departed. " 

A different kind of case to those narrated by my friend was 
that of a young girl known to me who had passed through the 
miserable experiences of a sinful life at Aldershot, and then had 
tried to drown herself in the river Avon, near Clifton. She was 
in some way saved from suicide, and placed for a time in a pen- 
itentiary, but her health was found to be hopelessly ruined, and 
she was sent to die in the quaint old workhouse of St. Peter's at 
Bristol. For months she lay in the infirmary literally perishing 
piecemeal of disease, but exhibiting patience and sweetness of 
disposition quite wonderful to witness. She was only eighteen, 
poor young creature, when all her little round of error and pain 
had been run; and her pretty, innocent face might have been 
that of a child. She never used any sort of cant (so common 
among women who have been in refuges,) but had apparently 
somehow got hold of a very living and real religion, which gave 
her comfort and courage, and inspired her with the beautiful 
spirit with which she bore her frightful sufferings. On the wall 
opposite her bed there hung by chance a print of the Lost Sheep, 

and Mary S , looking at it one day, said to me: "That is 

just what I was, and what happened to me; but I am being 
brought safe home now. " For a long time before her death her 
weakness was such that she was quite incapable of lifting herself 
up in bed, or of supporting herself when lifted, and she of course 
continued to lie with her head on the pillow while life gradually 
and painfully ebbed away, and she seemingly became nearly 
unconscious. In this state she had been left one Saturday night 
by the nurse in attendance. Early at dawn next morning — on 
Easter morning, as it chanced — the poor old women who occu- 
pied the other beds in the ward were startled from their sleep by 



Marvelous. ANECDOTES. 233 

seeing Mary S suddenly spring up to a sitting posture in her 

bed, with her arms outstretched and her face raised, as if in per- 
fect rapture of joy and welcome. The next instant the body of 
the poor girl fell back a corpse. Her death had taken place in 
that moment of mysterious ecstacy. 

A totally different case again was that of a man of high inte- 
lectual distinction, well known in the world of letters. When 
dying peacefully, as became the close of a profoundly religious 
life, and having already lost the power of speech, he was ob- 
served to suddenly look up as if at some spectacle invisible to 
those around with an expression of solemn surprise and awe, 
with an expression very characteristic, it is said, of his habitual 
frame of mind. At that instant, and before the look had time 
to falter or change, the shadow of death had passed over his 
face, and the end had come. 

In yet another case I am told that at the last moment so bright 
a light seemed to shine from the face of the dying man, that the 
clergyman and another friend who were attending him, actually 
turned simultaneously to the window to seek for the cause. 

Another incident of a very striking character occurred in a 
well-known family one of whose members narrated it to me. A 
dying lady, exhibiting the aspect of joyful surprise to which we 
have so often referred, spoke of seeing, one after another, three 
of her brothers who had long been dead, and then apparently 
recognized, last of all, a fourth brother, who was believed by the 
bystander to be still living in India. The coupling of his name 
with that of his dead brothers excited such an awe and horror in 
the mind of the person present that she rushed half senseless 
from the room. In due course of time letters were received an- 
nouncing the death of the brother in India, which had occurred 
some time before his dying sister seemed to recognize him. 

Again, in another case, a gentleman who had lost his only son 
some years previously, and who had never recovered from the 
afflicting event, exclaimed suddenly when dying, with the air of 
a man making a most rapturous discovery, "I see him ! I see him ! " 

Not to multiply such anecdotes too far — anecdotes which cer- 



234 ENTERTAINING Marvelous. 

tainly possess a uniformity pointing to similar cause, whether that 
cause be physiological or psycical, I will now conclude with 
one authenticated by a near relative of the persons concerned. 
A late well-known Bishop was called by his sisters "Charlie," and 
his eldest sister bore the pet name of "Liz." They had both 

been dead some years when the younger sister, Mrs. , also 

died, but before her death appeared to behold them both. While 
lying still and apparently unconscious, she suddenly opened 
her eyes and looked earnestly across the room, as if she saw 
some one entering. Presently, as if overjoyed, she exclaimed, 
"O Charlie!" and then, after a moment's pause, with a new start 
of delight, as if he had been joined by some one else, she went 
on, "and Liz!" and then added, "How beautiful you are!" Af- 
ter seeming to gaze on the two beloved forms for a few minutes, 
she fell back on her pillow and died. 



The Clown's Acting Misunderstood. 

Among the many comical performances of the Conrad 
Brothers, acrobat clowns, was the simulation of death. One 
evening, while performing in Germany, the elder Conrad fell 
to the ground after a pretended blow, and was turned and re- 
turned as usual. His arms and legs were jerked, he was struck 
and kicked and dragged, but preserved a steady impassibility. 
Suddenly an expression of distress could be noticed through the 
grotesquely-painted lineaments of his brother, who hastily 
dropped on his knees and placed his hands upon the heart 
of the inanimate clown, exclaiming "my poor brother is dead!" 
At this the audience only laughed. 'Gentlemen,' said the dis- 
tressed man, with tears in his voice, 'I assure you that he is 
dead.' Then taking him tenderly in his arms he bore him from 
the arena. The crowd appeared struck with the natural man- 
ner in which the bereft clown expressed grief, and applauded 
him vigorously as he departed. There were loud encores for 
both, but neither presented himself. Death had been more 
thoroughly simulated than ever before. 



Marvelous. ANECDOTES. 235 

Riches in the Skies. 

At 4 o'clock on the morning of the seventh of January 1878, 
it was noticed that an immense body, glowing with intense brill- 
iancy, came rushing across the face of heaven, illuminating the 
earth with the light of day. It traveled in an oblique direction 
from the southwest to the northeast, and instantaneously a shock 
was felt that almost threw the few spectators at that early hour 
from their feet. 

A few days after, Mr. Wheeler, who cultivates a ranch in 
Diamond Valley, Nevada, and who is also in the stock business, 
came into Eureka, and left a most remarkable substance with 
an assayer. Mr. Wheeler had a smattering of metallurgical 
knowledge, and, it seems, had tested the compound with a blow- 
pipe and other means within his reach, and detected the 
presence of the precious metals, but was unable to determine 
the value. 

The piece submitted to the assayer was about as large as a 
hen's egg, and immediately attracted his attention by its unsual 
weight and peculiar color, it being of a purplish-black shade, and 
where it had been broken off the main body presenting a lami- 
nated stratification that he failed to recognize. Mr. Wacke 
expended the whole night in a series of experiments, applying 
every well known test to the article, and detecting the presence 
of iron, nickel, cadmium, lead, silver, gold, zinc, cobalt, silica, 
and phosphorus. There was also a residum to each assay, of 
which Prof. Wacke was unable to determine the properties, but 
he hopes by the use of the spectroscope to classify it. 

A surprising feature of the ore is excessive malleability and 
ductility, a small portion of it being reduced by hammering to a 
film not exceeding one-hundredth of an inch in thickness. He 
has sent a portion of it to the San Francisco Academy of Sci- 
ences, and also to Prof. Silliman, of New Haven, and in the mean 
time is prosecuting his researches. Prof. Wacke has found that 
the substance will reach three hundred and eighty-seven dollars 
in silver and forty-two dollars in gold per ton. 

The strangest part of the story remains to be told; and now 



236 ENTERTAINING Marvelous. 

that Mr. Wheeler has duly recorded his claim and perfected his 
title, we feel at liberty to disclose the facts. On the morning of 
the 7th of January Mr. Wheeler was almost thrown from his bed 
by a violent shock. Getting up and looking out of the window 
he observed at the foot of the mountain an immense mass glow- 
ing at a white heat and of intense brightness. Hastily dressing, 
he aproached as near as possible, and found that the object lay 
just at the foot of the Diamond mountain range, but the heat 
was so great that he could not go within one hundred yards of 
the spot. 

He kept his own counsel, and made repeated attempts to 
reach it, but did not succeed until the 14th inst, when it had 
cooled sufficiently to allow him to break off the portion brought 
to town. The main body will measure about sixty feet in height, 
eighty-seven feet in width, and is three hundred and fourteen feet 
in length. These are the proportions of the body visible, and it 
is probable that as much more is imbedded in the earth. Mr. 
Wheeler calculates that there are at least two million tons in 
sight, and if it will work anywhere near the assay he will extract 
an immense sum from the mass. 



The First Iron Sword. 

There is a legend in Japan of the extremest antiquity. It is 
that, for a long time in the world, there was no weapon that was 
not made of flint or stone. At last a sword was made of iron, 
and it was the maiden sword of this world. It fell into the 
hands of a young Prince. This Prince, feeling the greatness of 
such a treasure as the first sword, went forth to see what wrong 
he could right, what good he could do — went forth a sort of 
Quixote, but in a more serious mood. He saw a cut stick on 
the river, and he traveled up the river; and there he found an old 
man and an old woman with a beautiful maiden sitting between 
them, and all three were weeping. The Prince asked why they 
wept, and they said they had eight children, and there was in 
the neighborhood a terrible monster with eight heads and eight 



Marvelous. ANECDOTES. 237 

tails. This monster would devastate the whole country unless 
every year one of their chidren was given him to devour. They 
had given him seven daughters, and now they had brought the 
last. The monster was expected momentarily. The Prince 
looked at his sword but did not feel that it was equal to deal 
with eight heads. So he hit upon the device of preparing hogs- 
heads of wine. He had a park with eight gates and in each of 
these gates he placed a hogshead of wine, and when the mon- 
ster came, eight heads appeared, and eight heads went into these 
barrels of wine. And they sipped the wine, and deeper and 
deeper they went down, until the eyes were not over the barrel, 
and, in fact, they became intoxicated ; the result was that where 
their necks met in one, and in the body, the Prince cut off all 
the heads at one blow, and saved the young lady. 



Artists' Superstitions. 

The Signale of Leipsic records the following superstitions of 
artists : Josephine Gallmeyer always is tardy in her dressing-room, 
because she believes it brings her bad luck to be punctual. 
Frederike Gossmann always executed three scrapes with her right 
foot before stepping on the stage. Therese Tietjens believed 
that the person would speedily die who shook hands with her 
over the threshold at parting. Rachel and Mars claimed to have 
celebrated their greatest successes immediately after they had 
met a funeral. The petite Dejazet always made her entrance 
with a tiny seed in her mouth, which she would throw away as 
soon as she had to open her lips. Once she dropped the seed 
from her mouth when the Marquis de V. made a proposal of 
marriage to her, and she rejected him for fear of an unhappy 
marriage. Vincent Bellini would not permit a new work to be 
brought out for the first time if on the day announced he was 
first met by a man. "La Sonnambula" was several times post- 
poned for this reason. Every day on which one of Halevy's 
works was performed, the composer prayed a Schaema Israel 
three times. Meyerbeer regularly washed his hands before be- 



238 ENTERTAINING Marvelous. 

ginning an overture, and with closed eyes prayed a Hamalach 
Hagolel. A story is also told of a Vienna tragedienne who never 
plays unless she has a white mouse in her bosom, which the 
writer in the Signale claims to have often seen peeping from his 
singular hiding place. 



A Remarkable Incident in Connection with Bishop 
Lee's Death 

A very remarkable incident, which is well authenticated, is told 
in connection with the death of Bishop Lee, of Davenport, Iowa. 
A few weeks before he died, and while in good health, he had 
occasion one night after he had retired, and at a late hour, to 
get up and pass into another room. While doing this, the good 
Bishop missed his way in the dark, and coming near the head of 
the stairway, stumbled and fell headlong down the stairs. This 
sad accident, which in fact, occasioned his death, took place 
at about two o'clock in the morning. Now follows what the 
Bishop himself thought one of the most singular facts within the 
range of his wide experience. At the very same instant he fell, 
allowing for the difference of longitude, a son of his, residing 
several hundred miles away, near Omaha, Neb., in a dream of 
the loved ones at home, was suddenly startled by an apparent 
noise, and the fall and death of his father. The vision was so 
startling that it not only awakened him, but drove all sleep away 
for the night. He arose soon after, and was so disturbed that 
he at once wrote a letter to his father, narrating the dream, and 
inquiring if anything had happened to him or any member of the 
family. The Bishop on receipt of the letter recalled the event 
of his fall down stairs, and though not in the least superstitious 
about the matter, noted it as a singular fact, that the fall and the 
dream should have been exactly simultaneous. In other words 
as the Bishop afterwards remarked : "It would seem that my son 
heard the fall." This is a remarkable circumstance, and in its 
essential facts is as true as it is wonderful. 







Falling Leaves. 



ANECDOTES. 239 



FALLING LEAVES. 



The letter to which bachelors seem most inclined: Let 'er be. 

A rousing time : Just before breakfast. 

Brown says he's been so often deceived by the chicken at his 
boarding-house, that he now calls it the mocking-bird. 

You can't marry a-miss if you marry a widow. 

When a man has no bills against him he feels as though he 

belonged to the nobility. 

\ 
An officer on parade was thrown from his horse. He said to 

a friend: "I thought I had improved in my riding, but I see I 

have fallen off. 

Euthanasia means an easy death; but youth in Africa means 
sure death — for the missionary. 

Border troubles — Matching the wall paper. 

A good natured passenger fell asleep on a train, and was 
carried a few miles beyond his destination before he awoke. — 
"Pretty good joke on you, wasn't it?" said a friend. "Rather 
too far-fetched, " was the reply. 

Hotel-keepers are people we have to "put up with." 

"My dear, the striped hose on our boy, makes his legs look 
like barber poles." " That's all right; he is a little shaver." 

Paradoxical — "High words'' only means, in most cases, "low 
language. " 

Musk is recommended for moths, — but we suppose it must be 
kept out of the way of the musk-eaters. 

Unwelcome settlers — Those that offer ten cents on the dollar. 



240 ENTERTAINING Leaves. 

A standard Work. — History of the American Flag. 

Why a baker should not sell his bread: Because he kneads it 
himself. 

Russian sailors remind one of the dipper-constellation, because 
they are the great bear's-tars. 

It is the break of day that prevents night from going too far. 

A robbin' red-breast — The Indian. 

The custom of adorning the prows of vessels with a female 
head or figure is supposed to have originated in a desire to 
secure good port-rates. 

In very warm weather the schoolmaster is the only man who 
keeps his collars straight. 

"Leander," said Mrs. Sprikins, the other morning, as the for- 
mer was preparing to leave the house, "when commending my 
good qualities, why are you like a wool-grower?" "Something 
about sheep in it, ain't there?" queried Spilkins. "Just like you!" 
she replied. "The answer is: Because you are a she-praiser. " 
"Knew it all the time," chuckled Leander, as he slammed the 
door and whistled for a passing street car. 

A sign of spring: "To Let." 

The man who invites you to choose : The tobacconist. 

When you meet a man who is "hard up," you cannot do better 
than to leave him a loan. 

What is the difference between a young man and a goose? — 
Why, one is served with a tailor-bill, and the other is served with- 
out a tail or a bill. 

The Norristown Herald is willing to pay a premium for a pun 
on isinglass. Well, speak about some young lady looking at 
herself in a mirror. 

The path of duty — Through the Custom House. 

The price of sugar is up. Now look for a great syruprise. 



Leaves. ANECDOTES. 241 

Favorite airs of the fair sex — Solit aires and camel's (h) airs. 

How to get along in the world — Walk. 

The size of Paris bonnets is growing less, but the size of hus- 
bands is growing larger at the price. 

The difficulty with the servant-maid of the period is, that she 
is not maid to order. 

A cigar lighter : The box from which you took one. 

The girl who imbibed freely of apple juice was, for a time 
thereafter, be-cider-self. 

If a bank can't stand a loan, it must eventually go down. 

A circus band may toot in front of a newspaper-office for 
hours, but that doesn't make up for the failure to liquidate an 
advertising bill. — Cincinnati Saturday Night. No, it is a mis- 
erable substitoot. — Philadelphia Bulletin. 

William Winter calls his new book of poems "Thistle Down." 
He thinks Thistle make it sell. 

So the Kickapoos want to return from Mexico, do they? Let 
them. It don't do to Kick a poo-r Indian when he's down. 

The best thing to fall over now is a fall overcoat. 

"This," thought a boy while being trounced by his fond papa, 

; 'is very like a whale." 

"Do you call a man kind who remits nothing to his family 
while away?" said an actor. "Call that kindness?" "Yes, un- 
remitting kindness," was the reply of Douglas Jerrold. 

Spring openings: rat traps. 

A serious man may not be proverbial for wisdom, though he 

be a solemn un. 

Very few brass bands in a military parade can play as many 
airs as the drum-major puts on. 

No bird is actually on the wing. Wings are on the bird. 
16 



242 ENTERTAINING Leaves. 

A New Orleans editor who saw a lady making for the only 
empty seat in a car found himself "crowded out for more inter- 
esting matter. " 

A man who has just had to rig his wife up in a hundred dollar 
seal skin-cloak, charges it all to the rig-her of the climate. 

An optical delusion — A glass eye. 

The speaker of the house — The phonograph. 

"Do editors ever do wrong?" "No." "What do they do?" 
"They do write." 

One of the horses attached to a street-car got over the tongue 
the other day; whereupon Piper remarked that the animal had 
the start of him, as he had received a blowing-up from his wife 
that morning, and hadn't got over the tongue yet. 

"Two for assent." — A bridal couple. 

A Bloomingdale man went home the other evening, and told 
his wife that " It is better to have loved a hoss than never to have 
loved at all. " 

Food for repentance — Mince-pie eaten late at night. 

A Sunday-school boy, upon being asked what made the Tower 
of Pisa lean, replied: "because of the famine in the land." 

A stare-case — A telescope. 

Old Uncle Ned could never have become a member of any 
colored society, because, no matter what his qualifications, he 
would always be black bald. 

An exclamation that does not apply to the "girl of the period:" 
A lass too true ! 

A corner in flax is bad, but ache on a toe is worse. 

If your landlady's daughter is pretty, you may say , "Please pass 
me that, honey." 

The period spent by the chicken in the shell might be desig- 
nated as the inter-eggnum. 



Leaves. ANECDOTES, 243 

"Why did you set your cup on the chair, Mr. Jones?" said the 
landlady. "It is so very weak, ma'am, I thought I would let it 
rest." 

Now is the time to put your hens under bonds with a coop-on. 

The butchers are the ones principally concerned in the adoption 
of the meat-trick system. 

When does a man become a "burning" poet? When he's 
a versifier. 

A shoemaker advertises "medical boots." The virtue is in the 
heel. 

The girls at Wellesley College have had the scarlet fever. Well, 
we suppose they will be better, red. 

It is not aviary foolish thing to call a kitchen timepiece a 
"cookoo clock." 

Two barristers were conversing about a case, when one said : 
"We have justice on our side." "What we want," said the 
other, is the Chief Justice." 

A man asked for a bottle of hock, and said hie, haec, hoc. — 
The waiter, who knew a little Latin, did nothing. "Did I not 
order some hoc?" said the man. "Yes," said the waiter, "but 
you afterwards declined it." 

It is a bad sign when a preacher tries to drive home his logic 
by thumping the desk violently with his clenched hand. His 
arguments are so-fist-ical. 

Coleridge once being asked which of the Wordsworth's pro- 
ductions he considered the prettiest, very promptly replied 
" His daughter Dora. " 

Foote once asked a man why he forever sang one tune. — 
"Because it haunts me." "No wonder," said Foote, "you are 
continually murdering it. " 

"I have asked her to marry me, and I have the refusal of 
her." 



244 ENTERTAINING Leaves, 

A printer's boy went to see a preacher's daughter. The next 
Sunday the minister's text was: "My daughter is grievously 
tormented with a devil.'* 

Robert Hall, disgusted with the egotism of a young clergyman, 
said: "Yes, there was one very fine point in your discourse 
sir." "Which was it?" "Why, sir, the passage from the pulpit 
into the vestry." 

A curate being chided by the Bishop for attending a ball, said : 
"My lord, I wore a mask. " "Oh," said the Bishop, "that puts 
a new face on the affair. 

A bachelor having advertised for a wife to share his lot, was 
asked what size his lot was. 

A husband can readily foot the bills of a wife who is not 
afraid of being seen footing the stockings of her husband. 

A port of entry : Port-wine. 

Dr. Johnson said of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, 
which was poor in purse but prolific in its distribution of degrees : 
"Let it persevere in its present plan, and it may become rich by 

degrees. " 

A coquette is one who first steals your heart by her address, 
and then steels her own heart to your addresses. 

"Sambo, did you ever see the Catskill mountains?" "No, 
sah, I've seen 'em kill mice. " 

Nibs being told that Lucinda took the circumstance very 
much at heart, said, "Did she, indeed? The poor girl. Would 
that I were that circumstance!" 

Counselor Lamb told Erskine he felt himself growing more 
timid as he grew older. "No wonder," said the latter; "Every 
one knows the older a lamb grows the more sheepish he becomes. " 

"Who wrote the most, Dickens, Warren, or Bulwer?" War- 
ren wrote 'Now and then,' Bulwer wrote 'Night and Morning,' 
and Dickens wrote 'All the Year Round.' " 



Leaves. ANECDOTES. 245 

Which is the most awkard time for a train to start? 12.50, 
as it's ten to one if you catch it. 

Why is a bride-groom often more expensive than a bride? — 
Because the bride is given away, but the groom is often sold. 

Why was Goliath surprised when David struck him with a 
stone ? Because such a thing never entered his head before. 

Why are good intentions like fainting ladies ? Because they 
want carrying out. 

Why is an omnibus strap like conscience? Because it's an 
inner check to an outer man. 

What is the oldest table in the world? The multiplication 
table. 

What is the difference between a light in a cave and a dance 
in an inn? One is a taper in a cavern, and the other a caper in 
a tavern. 

What is the difference between a man going up stairs and one 
looking up? One is stepping up the stairs, the other staring up 
the steps. 

Why is a stick of candy like a race horse? Because the more 
you lick it, the faster it goes. 

What is the difference between an engine driver and a school- 
master? One minds the train and the other trains the mind. 

What shape is a kiss? Elliptical. (A-lip-tickle.) 

Why is a shoe black like an editor? Because he polishes the 
understandings of his patrons. 

Why is a fishmonger never generous? Because his business 
is sell-fish. 

Prof. Cromwell says that Rome in exchanging her religion ex- 
changed Jupiter for Jew Peter. This is considered a remark- 
able pun. 

What relation is a door mat to a door step? A "step farther." 



246 ENTERTAINING Leaves. 

Why is a pretty girl like a locommotive ? Because she sends 
off the sparks, transports the mails, and has a train following 
her. 

What man had no father ? Joshua, the son of Nun. 

Why is a dead doctor like a dead duck? Because they have 
both done quacking. . 

When can donkey be spelt with one letter? When it's " U." 

Why have chickens no fear of a future state? Because they 
have their next world (necks twirled) in this. 

Why is a shool-boy being flogged like your eye ? Because he's 
a pupil under the lash. 

Why are clouds like coachmen? Because they hold the rains. 
{reins.) 

Why is love like a potato? Because it shoots from the eyes 
and gets less by pairing. 

Why is the fisherman's the most lucrative employment? It's 
all nett profit. 

Why does the sailor know there's a man in the moon? Be- 
cause he's been to sea. (see.) 

How do you keep water out of your house ? Omit to pay 
your water tax. 

Why are fixed stars like wicked old men? Because they 
scintillate. (Sin- till-late.) 

Why is an umbrella like a pancake? Because it's seldom 
seen after lent. 

If you saw a house on fire, what three celebrated authors 
would you feel disposed at once to name ? Dikens — Howitt — 
Burns. 

When is a man duplicated ? When he is beside himself. 

Why is a policeman like a rainbow ? Because he rarely 
appears until the storm is over. 




Leaves. ANECDOTES. 247 

Why is a little dog's tail like the heart of a tree ? Because it's 
farthest from the bark. 

What word by changing one letter becomes its opposite ? — 
United — Untied. 

At what time of day was Adam born? A little before Eve. 

How were Adam and Eve kept from gambling ? Their pair 
of dice was taken away from them. 

What is that which you can keep after giving it to some one 
else ? Your word. 

What most effectually checks a fast man? A bridal. 

What tree bears the most fruit to market? The Axle-tree. 

Why is a pretty girl like an excellent mirror ? She's a good 
looking lass. 

Why is a pig with a curly continuation, like the ghost of Ham- 
let's father ? Because he could a tale unfold. 

Who dares sit before the Queen with his hat on? The coach- 
man. 

When are apples alike ? When pared. 

Why does tying a slow horse to a post improve his pace? It 
makes him fast. 

What is the difference between a mouse and a young lady? — 
One harms the cheese, the other charms the he's. 

On what day in the year do women talk the least ? The short- 
est day. 

Why is an egg like a colt? Because it isn't fit for use 'till it's 
broken. 

What money brings the most substantial interest ? Mat- 
rimony. 

Why should Benjamin marry Annie? Because he would be 
Bennie-fitted, she Annie-mated. 



243 ENTERTAINING Leaves. 

Why are alum mines like cotton mills? Because they have 
a-loom-in-em. 

What two letters express the most agreeable people in the 
world? U and I. 

Why are kisses like the Creation? They are made of nothing 
and yet are very good. 

What most frequently becomes a woman ? A little girl. 

Why is a lawyer like a restless sleeper? He lies first on one 
side and then on the other. 

What is the difference between a Honey-Comb, and a Honey- 
Moon ? One is composed of little Cells, the other is one Big Sell. 

A boy said, "My Father has a Brother but he is not my Uncle. " 
How can you explain the contradiction ? The Boy Lied. 

What is the difference between Perseverance and Obstinacy. 
One arises from a strong Will, and the other from a strong Won't. 

Why is the figure 9 like a Peacock ? Because it is nothing (o) 
without its tail. 

Why do women seek husbands named William? So they can 
have a Will of their own. 

What rose is born to blush unseen? Negroes. 

What is the difference between a barber and a mother? One 
has razors to shave, and the' other shavers to raise. 

Why are books your best friends? Because when they bore 
you, you can shut them up without giving offence. 

What's the difference between stabbing a man and killing a 
hog ? One is assaulting with intent to kill, and the other killing 
with intent to salt. 

When is a soldier not half a soldier? When he's in quarters. 

Why is a man's face shaved in January like a celebrated fur? 
Because it's a chin-chilly. 

What part of a fish is like the end of a book? The fin-is. 



Leaves. ANECDOTES. 249 

What word may be pronounced quicker, by adding a syllable 
to it? Quick. 

When is a pretty girl like a ship? When she is attached to a 
buoy. 

Why should a man never marry a woman named Ellen? — 
Because he rings his own (K) Nell. 

Why is an interesting book like a toper's nose? Because it is 
red (read) to the very end. 

What is that which never flies, but when its wings are broken? 
An army. - 

When is a man not a man? When he's a shaving. 

Why are pretty girls like fire-works? Because they soon 
go off. 

Why is it absurd to ask a pretty girl to be candid? Because 
she cannot be plain. 

Why is a melancholy young lady the most attractive of com- 
panions? Because she is always &-musi?ig. 

What is that which never asks questions, yet requires answers? 
The door bell. 

What is that which goes up the hill and down the hill, and yet 
stands still? The road. 

Why is a neglected damsel like a fire which has gone out? 
Because she has not a spark left. 

Why is a plum cake like the ocean? Because it contains 
many currants. 

What ship is it that no woman objects to embark in? Court" 
ship. 

What is that which is full of holes and yet holds water? A 

sponge. 

Why cannot a deaf man be legally convicted? Because it is 
unlawful to convict a man without a hearing. 



250 ENTERTAINING Leaves. 

What is the worst seat a man can sition? "Self-con-^«V." 

Why is a hive like a spectator at a show? Because it is a bee- 
holder 

Why is a proud woman like a music book? Because she is full 
of airs. 

What kind of essence does a young man like when he pops 
the question? Acquiescence. 

What is the difference between an auction and sea-sickness? 
One is the sale of effects, the other the effects of a sail. 

Why are the ladies the biggest thieves in existence? Because 
they steel their petticoats, bone their stays, crib their babies, and 
hook their dresses. 

Why is chicken pie like a gunsmith's shop ? Because it con- 
tains fowl-in pieces. 

Which is the way to make a coat last? Make the vest and 
trousers first. 

Why does a spoon reclining in a cup of tea resemble a hand- 
some young lady? Because it is in tea-resting. 

Who may marry many a wife, and yet live single all his life? — 
A clergyman. 

Where can happiness always be found? In the dictionary. 

Why are hot rolls like caterpillars? Because they make the 
butter-fly. 

Why is an amateur artist dangerous? Because his designs are 
generally bad. 

Why are old bachelors bad grammarians? Because when asked 
to conjugate, they invariably decline. 

What prescription is the best for a poet? A composing 
draught. 

Why is a poor acquaintance better than a rich one? A friend 
in need is a friend indeed. 



Leaves. ANECDOTES. 251 

Hook at a civic banquet at the fifth course laid down his knife 
and fork and declared he would take the rest out in money. 

A man was killed by a circular saw, and in his obituary notice 
it was stated that he was "a good citizen, an upright man and an 
ardent patriot, but of limited information with regard to cir- 
cular saws. " 

A colored servant sweeping a room, found a sixpence belong- 
ing to a lodger. "You may keep it for your honesty," After- 
wards he missed a gold pencil case, and asked the servant if he 
had seen it. "Yes, sir, I have kept it for my honesty. " 

A big Yankee from Maine, on paying his bill in a London res- 
taurant, was told that the sum put down didn't include the 
waiter. "Wal," he roared, "I didn't eat any waiter, did I?" He 
looked as though he could, though, and there was no further dis- 
cussion. 

"Do you you not like to to go to church?" said a lady to Mrs. 
Partington. "Law me, I do, "replied Mrs. P. "Nothing does 
me so much good as to get up early on a Sunday morning, and 
go to church and hear a popular minister dispense with the gos- 
pel." 

"Martha, dost thou love me?" said a young Quaker. "Why, 
Seth, we are commanded to love one another." "Ah, Martha, 
but dost thou feel what the world calls love?" I hardly know 
what to tell thee, Seth. I have tried to bestow my love upon all, 
but I have sometimes thought perhaps that thou wast getting 
more than thy share. " 

The day is not far distant, murmurs the Elko Post, when the 
housewife will glance into the woodshed, and, finding that the 
husband has gone off without splitting the daily allowance of 
fuel, will take down the phonograph, and howl into it a volley 
of epithets that will register one hundred and sixty pounds pres- 
sure to the square inch on the safety gauge, and then call out to 
her boy: "Here, John, go down town and grind that out to your 
lazy old father, and see that you turn the crank, lively too. " 



252 ENTERTAINING Leaves. 

Men never love women they do not understand, and women 
never love men they do understand. 

A Scotchman appealed to a clergyman for alms, and upon re- 
ceiving them said; "I'll gie ye an afternoon's hearing for this, 
one of thae days" 

"If I'm not home from the party at ten o'clock, don't wait for 
me, wife." "No, I'll not wait for you. If you're not home I'll 
go for you. " He arrived at ten. 

A Scottish clergyman heard a contention in a house and asked 
"Who is the head here?" The man said: "Sit down a little, 
we're just trying to settle that point." 

A man in Bengal asserts: "Tiger hunting is a very fine 
amusement, so long as you hunt the tiger, but it's rather 
awkward, when the tiger takes it into his head to huntjjw/. 

An Irishman beholding Niagara Falls, said: "What is there 
here to make such a bother about?" "Why," said his compan- 
ion, "see that mighty river pouring over into the deep abyss." — 
"And sure, what's to hinder it?" said Pat. 

Some one endeavored to console a man who had lost three 
wives, by saying: "The Lord hath indeed afflicted you. " "Yes, 
he has," said the man, "but the Lord didn't get much ahead of 
me, for as fast as he took one, / took another. " 

"The treasurer of a railroad asked the conductor why he 
passed a certain passenger, without asking his ticket or fare. — 

"Oh, he's a conductor on Railroad." "He a conductor! 

why what makes him dress so shabbily?" "He's trying to live 
on his salary, was the quick reply. 

A traveling Munchausen said he had seen a Church in Spain 
a mile long. "Bless me," said Garrick, "How broad was it?" 
"About ten yards," replied the startled narrator, who had not 
supposed Garrick to be listening. "That is not a round lie," said 
Garrick; "but differs from his other stories, which are generally 
as broad as they are long. 



Leaves. ANECDOTES. 253 

A Scotch wit says there is no reason why the phonogaph 
should not be spoken of as "she." It repeats everything. 

What is the difference between the Czar of Russia and one of 
his peasants? One issues his manifestoes, and the other mani- 
fests his toes without his shoes. 

A young lady remarked during a storm, she was afraid of 
lightning. "And well you may be," sighed her despairing lover. 
■ your heart is made of steel. " 

A little boy was shown the picture of the martyrs thrown to 
the lions. He startled his friends by shouting: "Ma, Oh ma! 
Just look at that poor little lion, way behind there, he won't get 
any. " 

Judge Breckenridge called a prisoner a scoundrel. "Sir," said 
the criminal, "I am not so great a scoundrel as your honor — 
takes me to be." "Put your words closer together," said the 
Judge. 

"It wasn't so very late, only a quarter of twelve." "How 
dare you sit there and and tell me that lie? I was awake when 
you came in, and looked at my watch, it was three o'clock. " — 
"Well, arn't three a quarter of twelve? 

A married lady, referring to the one hundred and forty-eighth 
Psalm, observed, that while young men and maidens, old men 
and children were expressly mentioned, not a word was said 
about married women. A clergymen assured her they had not 
been omitted, but included in one of the preceding verses un- 
der the description of vapors and storms. 

A soldier running for Congress, said: "Fellow citizens, I 
have fought and bled for my country. I have slept on the field 
of battle, and have walked over frozen ground, till my footsteps 
were marked with blood. " A voter, wiping his tearful eyes with 
his coat tail, said: "Did you say you followed the enemy over 
frozen ground till every footstep was covered with blood?" — 
"Yes." "Well then, I'll be blamed if you havn't done enough 
for your country. I'll vote for the other chap. 



254 ENTERTAINING Leaves. 

The art of conversation — British tourist (to fellow-passenger 
in mid-channel) — Going across I suppose?" "Fellow Passen- 
ger — "Yaas. Are you?" 

A German was about to visit his fatherland, and wishing to say 
"good-by" to a friend extended his hand and said: "Veil, offer 
I don'd see you dot onner time, hallo. " 

"We all knows, " said the school-committee-man to the new 
teacher he was examining for a position, "that A B an' C is 
wowels; but wot we wants to know is wy they is so. " 

It was very careless leaving the parrot in the parlor on Sunday 
evening, but she never thought anything about it until Monday 
morning, when he roused the whole house by making a smack- 
ing noise, and crying "Darling Susie ! darling Susie ! " He kept 
it up all day, too, and the old folks are much interested in the 
case. 

Two sisters conversing about a concert which had taken place, 
the younger of the two, who had been present, was asked if Miss 

H , one of the singers was encored. Her youthful fancy 

must have been drawn in another direction, for she replied, "Oh, 
no; she was in black velvet." 

Mackey, the California millionaire, came to this country a poor 
Irish boy. Stewart, the New York millionaire, came to this 
country a poor Irish boy. We might give other illustrations, but 
these two are sufficient to show that our struggling American 
youth made a great mistake in not coming to this country poor 
Irish boys. 

By private wire: Mr. Basingbal (city merchant) — "Most con. 
venient ! I can converse with Mrs. B. just as if I was in my own 
drawing-room. I'll tell her you are here. " (Speaks through the 
telephone.) "Dawdles is here — just come from Paris — looking 
so well — desires to be," etc., etc. "Now you take it and you'll 
hear her voice distinctly. " Dawdles — "Weally!" (Dawdles takes 
it.) The voice. — "For goodness sake, dear, don't bring that 
insufferable noodle home to dinner!" 



Leaves. ANECDOTES. 255 

Don't trouble yourself to stretch your mouth any wider," said 
a dentist to his patient. "I intend to stand outside to draw your 
tooth. " 

A doting mother labeled her preserves: "Put up by Mrs. D. " 
Her son ate them, and wrote on the labels: "Put down by 
Johnny D. " 

"I meant to have told you of that hole," said an Irishman to 
a friend, who had fallen into a pit in the Irishman's garden. "No 
matter," said Pat, u Tve found it. 

"Now my hearties, " said a Yankee captain, "you've a tough 
battle before you. Fight like heroes, 'till your powder's gone, 
then run. I'm a little lame and I'll start now." 

The conductor on a slow train said:" Madam, your boy can't 
pass at half fare, he's too large." "He may be too large now," 
replied the lady, "but he was small enough when we started. 

Fame is tardy in reaching some men ; but if tbe man is de- 
serving, it is bound to strike him sooner or later. A Berks 
County editor has had a blue and red canal-boat named after him. 

The theology of certain narrow-minded and narrow-hearted 
people reminds us of the child who told her little friend of French 
extraction that it was useless for her to say her prayers, because 
she couldn't talk English. 

Said a politician to his son : "Look at me! I began as an Al- 
derman, and here I am at the top of the tree, and what is my 
reward? Why, when I die, my son will be the greatest rascal in 
in the city." To this the young hopeful replied: "Yes, dad, 
when you die — but not till then. " 

A colored firm recently dissolved partbeiship and posted the 
following notice to the public : "De dissolution of co-parsnips 
heretofo resisting hetwixt me and Mose Jones, in de barber 
profession am heretofo dissolved. Pussons who owe must pay 
to de subscriber. Dem what de firm ose must call on Jones, as 
de firm is insolved. " 



256 



ENTERTAINING 



Leaves. 



Two ladies abused each other. Their friends appealed to 
Walpole. "Have they called each other ugly!''' "No." Very 
good, " said he, "I can reconcile them. " 

A poor cornet got his skull fractured, and was told by the 
doctor that his brain was visible. He replied: "Write and tell 
my father, for he always swore I had none. " 

"My brethren," said Swift in a sermon, "there are three kinds 
of pride: of birth, of riches, and of talents. I shall not speak of 
the latter, none of you being liable to that abominable vice. 

Thackeray was at a St. Louis dinner, when one waiter said to 
another: "That is the celebrated Mr. Thackeray. " "What's he 
done?" said the other. "Blessed if I know," was the answer. 

"I do not think, madame, that any man of the least sense 
would approve of your conduct. " said an indignant husband. 
"Sir," retorted the better half, "how can you judge what any man 
of the least sense would do ?" 

Pat: "What is the fare to Putnam?" Agent: "Putnam, Mass. 
or Putnam, Conn.?" Pat: "What is the fare?" Agent: "Five 
dollars to Putnam, Mass., and eight dollars to Putnam, Conn. " 
Pat: "Well, bedad, I'll take the cheapest." 

A railroad conductor having insulted a lady passenger, she 
said that the company should never have another cent of her 
money. "How can you manage that?" said the conductor. — 
"Hereafter, instead of buying my ticket at the office," said the 
lady, "I will pay fare to you." 

The Bishop of Hereford was examining a school-class the 
other day, and among other things asked what an average was. 
Several boys pi ^d ignorance, but one at last replied: "It is 
what a hen lays^on. " The answer puzzled the Bishop not a 
little, but the boy persisted in it, stating he had read it in his 
little book of facts. He was then told to bring his little book, 
and on doing so he pointed triumphantly to a paragraph com- 
mencing: "The domestic hen lays on an average fifty eggs each 
year. " 




tt:^-lsrTDS01sA.ttTSY ILLUSTFIATEID. 
Edited by Rev. J. B. McCLURE. 

In Cloth, fine, 1.00. Paper Cover, 50c. 

Sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price. Liberal discount to the trade. 

RHODES <& McCLUKE, Publishers, Chicago, 111. 




The Golden Hour. 



